LOVE  AND  LIBERATION 

THE  SONGS  OF  ADSCHED  OF  MERU 
AND  OTHER  POEMS 


BY 

JOHN  HALL  WHEELOCK 

Author    of  "The    Beloved  Adven- 
ture," "The  Human  Fantasy,"  etc. 


BOSTON 

SHERMAN,  FRENCH  &  COMPANY 
1913 


COPYRIGHT,  1913 
SHERMAN,  FRENCH  <&»  COMPANY 


"0  beauty  on  the  darkness  hurled, 

Be  it  through  me  you  shame  the  world" 

— JOHN  MASEFIELD 


2200526 


Acknowledgment  is  due  to  Scribner's 
Magazine,  Harper's  Magazine,  The 
American  Magazine,  The  Forum,  The 
Smart  Set,  The  International,  Po- 
etry, and  The  Lyric  Year  for  kind 
permission  to  reprint  many  poems 
which  first  appeared  in  their  pages. 


CONTENTS 

SONGS  OP  ADSCHED  OF  MERU  PAQB 

THE  NIGHTINGALE  AND  THE   ROSE 1 

IN   THE    MIDNIGHT   OP   THY   LOCKS 13 

HYMNS    AND    ADORATIONS 33 

RADIANT     NOON 57 

BIRD-SONGS  AND  ROSES          73 

THE   MYSTERY  AND  THE   MYTH 93 

LIBERATION           Ill 

REVELATION   AND   REST 121 

TALISMANS:    SECRETS   AND   DELIVERANCES        .       .      .135 

LOCKS   OF  THE   WORD-BRIDE 157 

OTHER  POEMS 

RETURN   TO   NEW   YORK 171 

DUSK 172 

SONG 173 

TOLSTOI 174 

TO    THE    VIRGIN 174 

PALINGENESIS  175 

RETURN 176 

TO   THE   DREAMERS 178 

EARLY    APRIL 178 

DEPARTURE 179 

THE    SAVIORS 180 

MID-OCEAN 182 

"MOTHER" 182 

SEA-VOYAGE  183 

"ALAS,  WHERE  THOU  ART" 184 

"MUSIC  IS  HIS  ROBE" 184 

THE    ANSWER 186 

THE    WINDS    OP   MARCH 187 


PAGE 

UNREST 187 

"O   MEMORY,    THOSE   EYES" 188 

THE   CLOSE   OF   MASS 189 

TO  A  POET  IN  DESPAIR 191 

BENEDICTION 191 

TO    MARY 191 

IN    THE    NIGHT 192 

THE    KEYS 193 

HYMN 195 

TWILIGHT   IN   MID-OCEAN 195 

THE    TRUTH 196 

TWO   SAD   SONGS 197 

TRIO 199 

REBELLION 204 

WOMAN,   THE    MYSTICAL 204 

AUTUMN 205 

THE   WIND  OF  TIME 206 

THE    BORDERLANDS 206 

BEETHOVEN           207 

TO  A  DEAD  GIRL 207 

BEAUTY   TO   HER    LOVER 208 

DUMBNESS 209 

TO    — 209 

THE    FRIEND 210 


SONGS  OF  ADSCHED  OF  MERU 


THE  NIGHTINGALE  AND 
THE  ROSE 


"See — how  the  roses  burn! 

Bring  wine  to  quench  the  fire." — 


MY   soul   looks    toward    you,   as   toward   the   coming 
Spring 

Soft    folded    flowers    look   up    at   dawn    of    day, 
Through  grateful  tears  toward  the  liberating  love, 

As  April  looks  through  starry  tears  toward  May. 


II 

I  WOULD  that  I  were  a  flower 

That  encloses  forevermore 
The  "You"  and  the  "Me"  together, 

One  in  the  deep  heart's  core. 

The  lover  and  the  beloved 

She  bears  in  her  breast  alone, 
Inextricably  interwoven, 

Deep  in  her  breast  made  one. 

There  in  the  being  beloved 

The  lover  is  rapt  away; 
The  lover,  drenched  through  with  the  loved  one, 

Laughs  upward  to  greet  the  day. 


In  the  chalice  and  cup  of  her  beauty 

Their  mingled  beauties  unite, 
Their  ecstasies  mingled  in  choir 

Make  odor  of  the  dim  light. 

Ah  there  the  lover  with  longing, 

In  the  self  beloved  the  most 
Slips  into  the  peace  of  her  being, 

In  the  depths  of  her  being  is  lost. 

We  strive,  and  fall  backward  from  beauty, 
Twain  from  the  war  to  be  one, 

But  the  pain  of  their  warring  is  ended, 
The  race  of  their  longing  is  run; 

In  the  infinite  peace  of  her  bosom 
Where  silently  bloom   and  blend 

The  longing  for  beauty,  and  beauty — , 
The  origin  and  the  end. 


Ill 

O  TO  be  part  of  all  I  love  the  most, 

Touch  you,  and  live  you,  and  breathe  of  you,  and 

die, 
Sweet,   of  yourself,  part  of   your  blood   and  breath, 

And  pass  into  your  beauty  with  a  cry! 


IV 

APRIL  all  my  bosom 

Was  breaking  and  my  heart, 
Sorrowful  in  the  Springtime 

I  wandered,  and  apart. 

I   sought  among  the  great, 
I   sought  among  the  wise; 

Scornful  from  my   face 

They  turned  away  their  eyes. 

But  the  beloved  knew, 

She  took  me  to  her  breast, 

With  her  heart  she  stilled 
The  heart  of  my  unrest. 

All   the   life   within   me 

I  was  so  fain  to  give 
She  touched  with  tears  of  pity, 

She  took,  and  bade  it  live. 

In  the  silence  of  her  being, 
Her  coverts   dark   and  deep, 

The  secret  of  her  beauty, 
My  sorrow  fell  asleep. 

Whence  my  life  forever 

Has   found  a   flowering  place, 
In  the  quiet  of  her  bosom, 

The  peace  of  her  embrace. 


O  FAR  beyond  the  sorrow  of  myself 

I  move  to  you,  as  the  waning  Winter  moves 

Toward  the  dear  Spring,  leaving  himself  behind, 
Lest  with  one  touch  he  mar  the  self  he  loves! 


VI 

LIKE  a  young  flower, 

Lovely  and  bare, 
My  love  spread  her  beauty 
On  the  dim  air. 

Like  a  soft  breath 

On  the  breezes  blown, 

Her  loveliness  lured 
My  life  to  her  own. 

The  cup  of  her  beauty 

I  entered  within. 
Her   beauty   closed 

And  folded  me  in. 

Now  must  I  die 

At  the  core  of  her  heart, 
Shut    from   the   world 

And  sundered  apart, 


Lost  in  her  life, 

In  her  loveliness  slain; 
Sweet  is  the  sorrow, 

Sweet  is  the  pain. 


VII 

FROM  the  sorrow  of  my  being, 
From  the  self  that  I  must  be, 

For  the  mystery  of  your  presence, 
Sweet,  I  thirst  to  set  me  free. 

Would  that  with  your  very  selfhood 
You  might  wipe  my  own  away, 

Lost  forever  all  my  sorrow 
In  your  joy,  as  night  in  day. 

To  be  one  with  you  forever, 
Nor  profane  with  any  breath 

Of  myself  the  self  I  love  so, 
Triumphing  beyond  my  death ! 


VIII 

WHERE  is  the  Spring  to  be  found 
And  in  what  hidden   place! 

Where  four  lips  are  joined  together, 
Where  lover  and  lover  embrace; 


In  the  call  of  the  bird  on  the  bough, 
By  the  crocus  bursting  in  bloom, 

In  the  call  of  the  voice  beloved, 

The  whispering  voice   in  the   gloom, 

The  call  of  a  voice  through  the  dark 
When  all  the  world  lies  dumb, 

When  all  the  world  lies  sleeping, 
"Sweetheart, — come — come !" 


IX 

WOULD  that  into  your  being 
Myself  might  slip,  in  the  cup 

Of  the  flower  of  your  spirit 
Forever  folded  up. 

From  all  the  outer  terrors 
And  the  ugliness,  at  the  core 

Of  the  chalice  of  your  bosom, 
Folded  f orevermore ! 


LOVE,  alas,  within  your  bosom 

Dwells  the  source  of  all  my  pain, 

Everything  that  I  desire 

Most,  her  silent  walls  contain. 


7 
Dear,  alas,  within  your  bosom 

Heaves   the  whole   Spring's  starry  breath, 
The  one  secret  that  I  long  for 

In  the  wastes  of  life  and  death; 

The  one  secret  that  I  long  for, 

The  one  self  for  which  I  long, 
The  hushed  choir  of  my  singing 

And  the  source  of  all  my  song. 

Ah,  the  one  soul  'mid  a  million 

Strewn  like  stars  from  east  to  west, 

The  one  soul  that  love  has  need  of, 
Deep  in  the  beloved  breast. 

Deep  within  your  heart  it  slumbers, 

Under  life  and  loving  deep, 
Like  a  spirit  hid  forever 

Under  the  dim  veils  of  sleep. 


XI 

WOULD  that  I  might  become  you, 
Losing  myself,  my  sweet! 

So   longs   the  dust  that  lies 
About  the  rose's   feet. 


So   longs   the   last,   dim   star 
Hung  on  the  verge  of  night — , 

She  moves,  she  melts,  she  slips, 
She  trembles  into  the  light. 


XII 

O  BELOVED,  when  I  heard  it 
From  your  lips  my  very  name 

First,  how  like  a  song  it  sounded, 
Still  the  same,  yet  not  the  same ! 

To  myself  another  meaning 
Then  was  added,  and  a  j  oy 

All  tongues  after  you  repeating 
Never  wholly  may  destroy. 


XIII 

PRESS  closer  to  me,  dear, 

Ah,  close  and  closer  press — 

Crush  out  with  your  sweet  self 
All  the  blind  loneliness. 


Press  in  with  your  sweet  self 
And  crowd  away  my  own, 

Till  for  a  space  at  least 
I  am  no  more  alone. 

O  I  thirst — I  run  to  meet  it, 
As   twilight   runs   to  day — 

To  the  dear  opposite  presence 
That  floods  his  own  away! 


XIV 

"I  WILL  give  you  pain,"  said  Thought; 
"I  will  give  you  toil,"  said  Fame; 

Death  said,  "I  will  destroy 
Utterly  the  fair  dreams  that  you  have  wrought." 

O  Death! 

But  the  beloved  said: 
"Come,  come  to  my  heart, 

Come — I  will  give  you  Joy !" 


XV 

I  THIRST,  I  thirst!  O  bare  the  springs  of  your  spirit! 

Dear,  draw  the  veils  of  your  inmost  life  aside, 
And  take  me  to  the  most  secret  place  of  your  being, 

Ever  there  to  abide ! 


10 

XVI 

MY  sweet  has  opened  her  heart 

And  I  have  entered  in ! 
My  sweet  has  opened  her  heart 

And  I  have  entered  in. 

Her  heart  lies  bared  to  my  own 

As  the  fields  to  the  trembling  night, 

Her  heart  lies  bared  to  my  own, 
As  the  sea  to  the  starry  light. 

Her  heart  lies  bared  to  my  own 
As  the  earth  to  the  April  rain; 

My  sweet  has  opened  her  heart, 
And  I  have  entered  again! 


II 


IN  THE  MIDNIGHT  OF  THY 
LOCKS 


"In   the   midnight  of  thy   locks 
I  renounce  the  day — " 


13 


Is  it  the  nightingale's  singing 

That  wakes  my  heart  like  wine? 

Or  is  it  your  heart  against  me 
That  makes  her  singing  divine? 

The  starlight  through  the  lattice, 
That  bathes  your  bosom  white, 

Trembles  it  with  her  song, 

Or  the  song  with  the  starry  light? 

And  is  it  but  a  dream? 

Or  is  the  dreaming  true? 
Is  this  that  questions,  I — , 

And  this  that  answers,  You — •  ? 

Hard   it   is   to   believe — , 

No  more  can  we  comprehend 

Love,  when  it  is  here, 

Than  Death  when  it  comes  in  the  end. 


14 

II 

LIFT  your  arms  to  the  stars 
And  give  an  immortal  shout, 

Not  all  the  veils  of  darkness 
Can  put  your  beauty  out! 

You  are  armed  with  love,  with  love, 
Nor  all  the  powers  of  Fate 

Can  touch  you  with  a  spear, 
Nor  all  the  hands  of  Hate. 

What  of  good  and  evil, 
Hell  and  Heaven  above — , 

Trample  them  with  love ! 
Ride  over  them  with  love ! 


Ill 

WHEN  side  by  side  in  the  gloom 

Of  the  midnight  our  souls   are  laid, 

Darkness  laps  you  about, 
Into  a  voice  you  fade. 

Vanished  the  day's  delusions — , 
Appearance  that  sunders  apart, 

Again  the  darkness   discovers 
Your  very  self  to  my  heart. 


15 
By  the  sound  of  the  breath  of  your  words, 

The  cry  of  your  soul  from  the  Vast, 
By  the  touch  of  your  lips  unseen, 

I  know  you  again  at  last. 


IV 

'WAKE,  beloved,  awake! 

Lift  your  head  with  the  day! 
Morning  stamps  his  feet 

And   twilight  is   scattered   away. 


HUSH — 'tis  the  hour 

When  God  with  his  world 
Is  in  love;  dew-impearled 

Lies   His  love  on   each   flower. 

Now  breast  to  bared  breast 
In  the  moment  of  love 
Below  and  above 

Thrills  wild  with  unrest, 

Thrills  wild  with  unrest 
Overflowing,  and  spills 
Radiant  rapture  that  fills 

The  dark,  opposite  breast. 


16 

Now  the  heart  full  thereof 
Overflows  into  song, 
Flowing  softly  along 
In  the  rhythm  of  love, 

In  the  night,  in  the  night — . 

O  listen— O  hark! 

God's   love  through  the  dark 
Sheds    the    soft,    starry    light. 

At  the  touch  of  His  hand, 
As   on  murmuring  strings, 
So   tremble  all  things, 

And  all  understand. 

O  love,  let  us  blend 
As  sweet  harmonies  do, 
With   each   other   thrilled   through/- 
Touch, mingle,  and  end! 

With  a  whispered  "alas" — , 

Inarticulate   speech — , 

Each  into  each 
Murmur  and  pass! 

VI 

WHEN  moonlight  bathes  your  breast, 
When  Song  at  your  bosom  sighs, 

Beauty,  meeting  with  beauty, 

Turns  backward  with  glad  surprise. 


17 
When  starlight  floods  your  face, 

When  music  speaks  to  you, 
Beauty,  touching  with  beauty, 

Grows  lovelier  through  and  through. 

When  Love  at  your  bosom  leans, 

When  Love  at  your  bosom  dies, 
Beauty  mingles  with  beauty — , 

Fulfilled  the  Creation  lies. 


VII 

MY  soul  in  the  midnight  hour 
Seeks  yours  in  fear  and  doubt, 

But  the  answer  in  your  bosom 
The  twilight  has  put  out. 

Holy  is  the  slumber 

Wherein  you  are  sunken  deep, 
And,  after  spent  desire, 

The  majesty  of  sleep. 

VIII 

THE  lightning  flashed  and  lifted 
The  lids  of  heaven  apart. 

The  fiery  thunder  rolled  you 

All  night  long  through  my  heart. 


18 

From  dreams  of  you  at  dawn 

I  rose  to  the  window-ledge, 
The  storm  had  died  away — 

The  lake  lapped  on  the  sedge. 

The  lyre  of  heaven  trembled 
Still  with  the  thought  of  you. 

The  twilight  on  the  waters, 
And  all  my  spirit,  too. 


IX 

Now  Morning  rising  from  the  arms  of  Twilight, 

Baffled  and  inconsolable,  above 
The  dear,  worn  breast  and  sacrificial  body 

Widens   with   aching  love. 


WHAT  you  have  given  me 

Night,  nor  day, 
Nor  Death,  nor  Time 

Can  take  away. 

The  supreme  gift, 
All   gifts   above — , 

Nought  can  repay, 
Not  all  my  love. 


19 

0  most  adored ! 

0  my   delight ! 

The  day  shall  hear  me 
And  the  night! 

1  will  sound  your  name 
Through   heaven   and   hell 

And  the  starred  morning's 
Hollow  shell! 

I  will  make  this  joy 

Upon  my  lips 
Your  trumpet 

To  the  Doom's  eclipse! 

Here    with    my    heart 

1  fall  and  bow 
Around  your  feet, 

And  bless  you  now ! 


XI 

WHERE  is  the  dream  that  filled  me 
In   the   midnight  with   delight? 

And  where  is  the  angel  that  whispered 
Sweet  words  to  me  in  the  night? 


20 

Your  face  looks  out  at  me  laughing, 

(The  night  is  dead  and  done.) 
The  same,   yet  not   the  same,   dear: — 
The  angel  has  come  and  gone. 


XII 

THE  pavilion  of  heaven  trembles 

With  myriad  tapers  clear; 
The  light  in  the  swinging  censer 

Burns   low  in  your  chamber  here. 

Now   sleeps    the    heart   of   the   world, 

Her   memories    put   away, 
Now  'wake  the  immortal  eyelids 

After  the  rage  of  day. 

The  night  wails  'round  your  window, 
Heaven's  beauty  with  bounty  burns; 

Slow  stealing  into  my  spirit 

The  grace  of  your  presence  returns. 

By  some  spell,  inviolate,  holy, 
I  feel  it  lure  me  and  draw 

To  yourself,  some  force  as  secret 
And  true  as  the  starry  law. 


21 

And  I  cry  to  you  through  the  dark — , 
Your  breathings  measure  the  Deep — , 

I  cry   to  you  through  your   dreams, 
I  cry  to  you  through  your  sleep. 


XIII 

THINK  you  that  your  lips 

Were  meant  for  kisses  alone, 
That   only   Love    awakes 

When  backward  your  head  is  thrown ! 

Wherever  you  turn  your  head 

All  Beauty  turns  and  sighs, 
At  the  opening  of  your  lips 

A  hundred  poems   arise. 

Not  children  alone  of  the  flesh, 
But  children,  too,  of  dream, — 

At  the  challenge  of  your  beauty 
Into  the  daylight  stream. 

XIV 

MY  own  is  like  a  flower 

No    influence    touches    in   vain, 

Fairer  she  grows  for  the  sunlight, 
And  lovelier   for  the  rain. 


22 

XV 

I  HEARD  a  voice  in  the  morning 
Cry,  "  'Wake — for  Love  is  here !" 

Up  through  my  dreams  ascending 
I  turned,  and  saw  you  near, 

Close  at  my  bosom  sleeping — ; 

Still   I    held   your   hand 
Reached  to  me  in  compassion 

Out  of  the  silent  land. 

Gradual,  soundless,  slowly, 
Star  on  star  of  the  night 

Moved  with  harmonious  motion, 
Melted   into  the   light. 

The  heart  of  the  light  dilated, 
Throbbing  tense  and  clear — , 

"  'Wake — for  the  stars  are  scattered ! 
'Wake — for  Love  is  here!" 


XVI 

O  LOVE,  at  your  very  breast 
For  the   sheer  joy  to  be, 

Sobs  the  quick  throat  of  Love, 
The  heart  breaks  suddenly! 


23 
Love    laughs    through    blinded    lashes, 

Hardly  his  eyes  may  bear, 
Sweet,  at  your  head  to  see 

His  arms  for  a  halo  there! 


XVII 

THE  morning-star  is  twinkling 
Through  rifted  clouds  withdrawn, 

A  single,  flaming  taper 

In   the   bridal-chamber   of  Dawn. 

Faint  are  the  floors  with  flowers 
And  trodden  blooms  of  day — , 

One  by  one  night's  candles 

Have  dwindled  and  died  away. 

No  sound  disturbs  the  quiet — , 

Silence  forevermore. 
Drawn  are  the  twilit  curtains, 

Barred  is  the  golden  door. 


XVIII 

NEVER,  never  this  night 

From   my   dreams   shall   pass   away, 
Her  fiery  memories  burn 

My  heart  out  all  the  day. 


24 

Though  I  left  you  in  the  morning 

And  walked  among  the  crowd, 
Her  nightingales   followed   singing 

Still  in  my  heart  aloud. 

0  and  the  gracious  secret 
Within  me,  no  one  guessed! 

But  I   bore  you  within  my  heart, 
I  bore  you  within  my  breast, 

1  bore  you  within  my  spirit, 
Though  hidden   and   far   away, 

As  the  stars  unseen,  but  burning 
Still  in  the  heaven  of  day! 


XIX 

You  have  rushed  to  my  arms, 
You  have  run  to  me  now — 

You  cling  in  my   arms 
As  a  bird  to  a  bough. 

Dewed    as    the    morning, 

Starry   with   tears, 
Up  through  your  tresses 

Your   face  to   me   peers. 


25 
O    the   beauty   persuasive ! 

The  burden  most  dear ! 
Faint  as   I  am 

Again   from  me  here, 

Sweet  as  the  Spring 

From   the    earth   as    she   slips, 
Clinging  you  lure 

The  life  from  my  lips ! 


XX 

THE  night  with  her  myriad  tapers 
Hung  high  in  the  heaven's  height 

Is  lit  for  our  bridal-chamber, 
A  chamber  for  our  delight. 

Till  the  last  torch  flicker  and  vanish, 
Come,  let  us  dwell  evermore, 

Love-drunken,  sleepless,   and  weary, 
Till  daylight  unbar  the  door ! 


XXI 

You  have  given  me  life, 
You  have  given  me  joy, 

You  have  given  me  peace 
No  sorrow  can  destroy. 


O  sweet,  here  at  your  feet, 
What  is  there  left  to  give ! 

The  very  love  you  have  given 
That  lives  to  help  you  live. 


XXII 

THE  swallow  chirps  her  bridal-song 
Without  your  windows  here, 

And  the  bright  earth  arrays  herself 
For  the  bridal  of  the  year. 

The    Spring   lies    beautiful    and    weary 

Beneath  her  lover  the  sun, 
Weary  of  all  the  shames  and  beauties 

That  in  the  dusk  were  done. 

Listen,  almost  about  the  earth 
You  hear  the  mingled  tone — , 

The  pressing  and  the  pleading  lips, 
The  triumph  and  the  moan! 

Your  hair  is  decked  with  flowers,  dear, 

And  in  your  bosom  sings 
The  insatiate  Beauty,  but  your  eyes 

Are  weary,  like  the  Spring's. 


27 
XXIII 

THE  world  is  reckless  of  beauty, 

Lavish  of  love  as  a  bride: 
Is  the  flower  not  perfect  enough, 

And  has  her  perfume  beside! 

When  the  earth  is  fulfilled  of  herself 
And  the  heaven  starry  and  clear, 

The  nightingale  floods  the  night 
For  excess  of  exuberance  sheer. 


I,  that  was  drunk  with  the  j,oy 
Of  mere  earth  and  heaven  above, 

You  have  come  to  me,  You — ; 
O,  the  waste  and  the  bounty  of  love ! 


XXIV 

ALONG  the  mournful  eastern  rim 
Day  lifts   a   flaming  crest; 

Ah  sweet,  the  night  with  all  her  love 
Bleeds  out  along  the  west — , 

I  would  not  rise  with  day,  but  die 
With  darkness  at  your  breast! 


28 

XXV 

/ 
SLOWLY  you  sink  into  slumber, 

And  one  by  one  to  my  breast 

Crowd   the   white   songs   insistent, 

The  voices   that  never   rest. 

From  the  land  of  sleep  and  of  silence 
They  bring  me  tidings  of  you — , 

I    follow   them   seeking   your   spirit, 
I   follow  the  long  night  through. 

O  far  from  your  bosom  they  bore  me 
And  out  of  the  tumult  of  things ! 

O  I  followed,  I  floated  above  you — ! 
In  heaven  I  closed  my  wings. 

By  the  side  of  your  sleep,  in  the  silence, 
Sleepless  the  whole  night  long, 

To  the  sound  of  the  breath  of  your  slumber 
I  measured  the  breath  of  this  song. 


XXVI 

THE  dawn,  scattered  with  lilies 
And  flowers  pale  and  white, 

Is  like  your  breast  beginning 
The  morning  with  delight. 


29 
XXVII 


Now  Heaven  and  Earth 
Touch   lips   with    delight; 
Her   breast  in  the  night 

To  new  flowers  gives  birth. 


Sweet   lightning    of   laughter 
Leaps  earthward  and  slips. 
They  mingle  their  lips — , 

The  thunder  sobs  after. 


It  is   silent   again — 

O  listen,  O  hark, 

God's  love  through  the  dark 
Sheds   the   soft,   rushing  rain! 

Each  flower  her  cup 

Toward  the  kindness  above, 
The  clear,  filling  love, 

Lifts  thirstily  up. 

So  do  thou  to  mine, 

Till  softly  it  slips, 

Sweet,  from  my  lips, 
From  my  bosom  to  thine. 


80 

XXVIII 

DEAR,  when  I  think  how  I  love  you, 
At  the  mere  thought  thereof, 

Brim   the   blind    eyes   with   tears, 
Sobs   the  hurt  throat   for  love. 

How  shall  I  ever  sing  it! 

How  shall  I  ever  say! 
Love,  at  the  very  thought, 

Turns  trembling  lips  away. 


XXIX 

WITH  nothing  of  mine 
My  soul  was  content; 

For  a  gift  to  yourself, 
Yourself  I  have  sent. 


XXX 

I  ROAMED  in  the  gray  evening  over  field  and  hill, 

Above  me  the  pale  clouds  were  restless  wanderers, 
And  when  the  day  was  gone  and  all  the  fields  were 

still 

The  thought  of  you,  deep  in   my   heart,  was   like 
a  thousand  stars! 


Ill 

HYMNS  AND  ADORATIONS 


"/*  Allah's  face  on  thee 
Bending  with  love  benign! 

And  thou  not  less  on  Allah's  eye 
0  fairest,  turnest  thine — " 


33 


I  SING  the  immortality  of  your  body, 

A  source  and  a  well-head  of  immortal  things, 

The  terror  of  her  secret  and  shadowy  places, 

And  the  sad  fount  from  which  all  being  springs, 

The  somber  center  of  her  stately  beauty, 

Creation's    throne,   and   the   central    source   of   all, 
Bounteous  with  life  of  teeming  generations — , 

The  home  of  love,  though  ages  rise  and  fall; 

Immortal  from  generation  to  generation, 

Rearisen  with  every  form  of  fleeting  breath, 

Beloved  and   adored,  a   refuge   and   a  salvation, 
The  source  of  life  amid  the  wastes  of  death. 


II 


O  SWEET,  how  the  glory  of  loving, 
The   pure   and   the   fiery   flame, 

Burns   up   away   between   us 

The   clouds   of   fear  and   shame! 


34, 

O  love,  like  a  radiant  sunrise, 

That  gives  itself  away 
Wholly,  freely,  gladly, 

To  perish  of  the  day ! 

Ill 

UNDER  the  arch  of  the  morning 
I  raise  the  voice  of  my  song. 

I  sing  the  beloved's  beauty, 

Her  body  stalwart  and  strong, 

Her  bosom,  holy  and  white, 
Virgin,  a  promise  of  things. 

'Mid  the  manifold  choir  of  all, 
The  morning's  murmuring  strings, 

To  the   holy   of   heaven's   holies 
I  press  with  lips  that  rejoice, 

Under  the  temple  of  heaven 
I  raise  the  song  of  my  voice. 

I  sing  the  bosom  of  Love, 
Bounteous,  east  and  west, 

The  sad  and  the  sacred  lips 
And  the  sacrificial  breast, 

The  arch  of  her  body's  endurance, 
Doomed  to  endure  and  fulfill, 

The  patient  pulse  of  her  passion, 
Her  splendor  stately  and  still. 


35 

At  the  sound  of  my  spirit's  crying 
O'er  the  world  the  antiphonal  choir 

Breaks   forth,  of  the  mingled  delight 
Of  the  lips  that  endure  and  desire; 

The  woven  voice  of  their  warring 

Made  one  with  fierce  rapture,  the  moan 

Of  the  love  that  triumphs,  the  triumph 
Of  the  love  that  is  overthrown. 

The  holy  altar  of  heaven, 

Crowded  with  tapers  dim, 
Trembles   for  rapture,  and  flickers 

At  the  breath  of  the  sound  of  my  hymn! 

IV 

THERE   is  no  world, 

There  is  no  star 
But  I  will  find  you 

Where  you  are. 

Not  on  Eternity's 

Utmost  cape 
May  you  fly  me 

To  escape. 

O  my  delight, 

Your  beauty's  will 
Drives  me  on, 

And  lures  me  still! 


36 

Tireless  effort 

You  raise  me  to, 
And  years  of  labor, 
All  for  you. 

Though  fain  to  rest 
In  the  days  to  be, 

From  the  opposite  end 
Of  Eternity. 

Heaven's  length   I'd  run 
With  giddy  feet, 

To  pour  my  spirit 
Through  you,  sweet! 


As  a  cupbearer  to  the  side 

Of  one  who  is  thirsting  slips, 

When  I  cried  for  Joy 
You  held  it  to  my  lips. 

Graciously,  nor  denied  me. 

0  as  one  from  the  desert  lands, 
To  the  dregs,  to  the  last,  sweet  dregs, 

1  drained  it  from  your  hands. 


37 
I  cried  for  Love,  for  Love — 

To  my  lips  you  held  it  up 
With  brave  and  generous  hands, 

The  sacrificial  cup. 


VI 

THE  musk  that  the  morning  wind 

Brings   me   to   greet, 
Is  the  breath  of  you,  sweet, 

And  the  sense  of  you,  sweet. 

The  flowers  that  bow 

At  his  coming  their  faces 

Are  mirrors  of  you 
In  a  myriad  places. 

And  the  love  in  me,  too, 
And  the  song  in  me,  too, 

Is  the  echo  of  you, 

And  the  music  of  you! 


VII 

THE  earth,  for  the  joy  of  bearing 
Your  weight  upon  her  breast, 

Laughs  in  a  thousand  flowers 
From  the  east-land  to  the  west. 


38 

Against  the  heart  to  take  it, 

The  darling  body  and  bright- 
To  take  it  and  to  break  it, 

She  hungers  day  and  night. 

Hourly  toward  her  bosom 

She  draws  it  downward  close, 

Even  till  at  the  center 
In  sleep  it  shall  repose. 


VIII 

YOUR  body's   motion  is  like  music, 

Her  stride  ecstatical  and  bright 
Moves  to  the  rhythm  of  dumb  music, 

The  unheard  music  of  delight. 

The  silent  splendor  of  the  Creation 

Speaks   through  your   body's   stately  strength, 
And  the  lithe  harmony  of  Beauty 

Undulates  through  its  lovely  length. 

And  rhythmically  your  bosom's  arches, 

Alternately,  with   every  breath 
Lift  lifeward  in  long  lines   of  beauty, 

And  lapse  along  the  slopes  of  death. 


39 
IX 


IF  I  catch  you  up  to  my  heart 
Here,  where  the  pulses  ache, 

Almost  the  heart  cries  out, 

Almost  the  heart  would  break. 

O  love,  at  my  living  side, 

Here  where  the  pulses  crowd  !- 

The  holy  heart  of  longing 
Breaks,  and  sobs  aloud. 


FROM  the  evening-land  of  twilight 
To  the  morning-land  of   day 

There  is  no  Love  like  my  Love, 
So  perfect  every  way. 

O  Love,  how  fair  you  are, 
How  laughable  and  sweet, 

How  terrible  and  strange 

From  your  forehead  to  your  feet ! 

Were  not  your  eyes  enough 
To  wound   me,   O  my  own! 

All  your  little  beauties 

Are  spears  to  hunt  me  down. 


40 

XI 

FROM  the  south  to  the  north 

None  is  happy  as  I, 
I   sing  to  the  wind 

That   goes   galloping  by. 

My  lyre  is  heard 

In  the  desert  of  Time, 

All  hearts   shall  beat 

To  the  heart  of  my  rhyme. 

I  am  drunken  with  love, 
I  am  careless  of  death, 

I   draw  them   in 

And   out  with  my  breath. 

O  abandon  yourself 
To  an  ecstasy  sheer — 

Forget  how  to  doubt — 
Forget  how  to  fear! 

To  him  who  has  love 
Good  and  Evil  are  one, 

He  has  but  to  love, 

And  the  beauty  is  done. 

My  Love  is  my  joy 

From  the  day-spring  of  light, 
Through  the  flame  of  the  noon, 

To  the  shadow  of  night; 


41 
From  the  hour  when  first 

The  immaculate  star 
Of  evening  arises 

To  westward  afar, 

Till  his  wheel  in  the  sea 

White  Sirius  dips. 
She  has  kissed  with  her  own 

This  song  on  my  lips ! 


XII 

WOULD  you  not  have  me  love  you 
Or  remember  any  more, 

Stab  my  breast  to  the  heart. 
Stab  my  heart  to  the  core. 

Give  my  ghost  to  drink 

Of  the  cup  Oblivion, 
"Forget,  for  the  love  of  me," 

Write  these  words  thereon. 


XIII 

LIKE   a  temple  in  the  moonlight 
Shines  your  body's  stately  grace, 

Somber,  bathed  in  sumptuous  shadow, 
Filled  with  many  a  luminous  space. 


42 

In  the  choir  of  your  bosom 

All  is  hushed  and  laid  at  rest, 
Sleep  and  sleep  alone  possesses 

The  dim  altar  of  your  breast. 

Only  through  her  labyrinthine 
Arches,  like  far  echoes,  roll 

Whispers,  memories  of  hushed  music, 
Hints  of  the  departed  soul. 

Now  the  life  that  but  so  lately 
Clung  to  mine  is  laid  at  rest, 

Now  delight  and  love  are  silent, 
And  the  answer  in  your  breast. 


XIV 

THERE  only  is  one  hell 
Below,  one  heaven  above, 

One  for  those  you  hate, 
One  for  those  you  love. 

0  love,  what  must  I  do 

To  gain  the  heavenward  way? 

1  will  kiss  upon  your  lips 
A  thousand  prayers  a  day , 


Do  penance  at  them  daily 
For  kisses  left  undone, 

And  daily  in  your  arms 
Renounce  all  gods  but  one! 


XV 

LOVE  has  robes  of  splendor, 

Love  has  cruel  eyes, 
Love  is  swift  and  heartless 

Till  the  great  sacrifice. 

Then  fall  all  veils  from  off  her, 
All  masks  of  mirth,  or  moan, 

Radiant,  naked,  holy — 
Love  is  Love  alone. 


XVI 

O  SWEET,  are  the  hours  thorny ! 

Do  the  hours  bruise  you,  sweet! 
Lay  my  heart  between, 

Lay  my  heart  at  your  feet. 

Does  it  beat  against  them  rudely! 

Tread  it  into  the  ground. 
The  blood  that  leaps  to  kiss  them 

Shall  wash  them  of  their  wound. 


44 

XVII 

FEAR  not  the  powers  below, 
Fear  not  the  powers  above, 

Nor   death,   nor   fate,   nor   hate — 
More   terrible   is   Love. 

The  panthers  and  the  leopards 

Tug  meekly  at  his  car. 
Love  is  never  weary, 

And  cometh  from  afar. 

Though  you  fly  before  the  morning 
Till  the  east  become  the  west, 

You  shall  meet  him  mouth  to  mouth, 
You  shall  meet  him  breast  to  breast. 

All  heaven's  heads  bow  down 
And  all  the  throats  of  hell 

Cry  up  to  him,  his  face 
Is   holy  and  terrible. 


XVIII 

HEAVEN  rings  'round  with  the  rapture 
And  the  radiant  reaches  above, 

"Death,  that  from  all  sets  free, 
Frees  us  not  from  Love!" 


45 
XIX 


TELL,  me  why  I  love  you, 
Name  yourself,  my  Heart, 

Every  inward  bounty, 
Every  outward  art: 

The  hands,  the  lips,  the  eyes, 
The  beauty  in  your  breast, 

Your  very  inmost  spirit 
Separate  from  the  rest. 

When  your  lips  have  ceased, 
When  your  words  have  done, 

I  will  answer  you, 

"Not  for  these  alone." 


XX 

WEARY  is  age 

And  the  record  thereof- 
O  young  is  my  love, 

An  unwritten  page! 

Her  soul  is  a  flower 
But  newly  begun, 
On  her  petals  the  sun 

Has  shone  but  an  hour. 


46 

Wild  as  the  Spring, 
Ecstatic  and  sweet 
Is  her  body,  and  meet 

To  be  sung  of  and  sing. 

Athletic  and  pure 

As  a  wave  of  the  sea, 
To  follow  and  flee, 

Give  and  endure! 

Splendidly  moved 

To  swift  strides  along, 
Stalwart  and  strong 

To  love,  and  be  loved ! 

O,  as  clouds  from  afar 
That  mingle  and  move, 
We  hasten  with  love, 

As  star  unto  star! 

O,  as  swallows  that  dart 
Through  the  heaven  of  day, 
We  follow  as  they, 

Touch,  and  depart! 

With  four  arms  about, 
Two  bosoms  laid  bare, 
Age,  sorrow,  and  care 

From  our  world  we  shut  out! 


47 
XXI 


WHAT  shall  I  dare  to  give  you, 
Who  have  but  love  to  give, 

Who  have  but  one  forever, 
To  love  you  and  to  live ! 

I  will  give  you  love  that  loves, 
Love  with  willing  hands, 

Love  that  soars  and  sings, 
Love    that    understands. 


XXII 

WHERE  is  the  land  of  You 

And  how  shall  I  find  the  way? 

If  to  that  land  I  come 
Never  again  will  I  stray. 

A  land  that  is  yours  completely, 
Where  no  other  name  is  known; 

Where  no  other  faces  greet  me, 
No   voice   but   yours   alone. 

There  are  no  arms  but  your  arms, 

No  bosom  but  yours  is  there, 
Each  flower  in  all  that  island 

Is  sweet  with  the  breath  of  your  hair. 


48 

Leaf  to  leaf  of  the  trees 

Whispers   your   name,   your    name; 
The  roses  blush  with  your  beauty, 

The  lilies  are  white  for  shame. 

To  copy  the  veins  in  your  temples 
The  violets  take  their  hue, 

And  the  sun  that  rises  in  heaven, 
And  the  moon  that  sets  is  You. 


XXIII 

WHEN  no  more  at  my  bosom 
I  lift  you  with  each  breath 

Breathing  has  lost  its  purpose — , 

Each  breath  is  a  wave  toward  death. 


XXIV 

MY  Love  of  you  will  love  you 
When  all  my  love  is  done; 

My  Love  of  you  will  love  you 
When  I  am  dead  and  gone. 

I   am  mutable   and   weary, 
Made  of  dust  and  clay, 

7  shall  fade  and  perish, 
I  shall  pass  away. 


49 

He  is  drunk  and  filled  with  joy, 

He  is  crowned  with  joy  and  shod, 
His  eyelids  never  sleep — , 

He  has  kissed  the  lips  of  God. 

He  alone  is  holy, 

He  alone  is  strong — ; 
His  lamp  is  in  my  heart, 

His  sword  is  in  my  song. 


XXV 

FAR  from  your  heart  I  wander.       Twilight  closes. 

Far  from  your  heart  I  roam. 
Dear,  in  the  sweet,  pale  west  your  soul  arises, 

A  star — to  call  me  home. 


XXVI 

ALL  honey  and  gold  your  body  is,  of  fashion 
Lovely  and  liberal;  in  a  world  of  sadness 
Bearing  the  old  and  the  barbaric  gladness, 

The  ruddy  joy,  the  bounteous  compassion. 

Her  beauty's  challenge,  like  clear  trumps  of  warning 
Blown  from  the  throne  of  God  with  royal  splendor, 
Summons  to  love,  the  eloquent  and  tender 

Lines  of  her  grace  unfolded  like  the  morning. 


50 

Ever  she  sounds,  with  royal  reverberation 

Of  ringing  pulses  and  rhythm  of  grace  supernal, 
The  call  to  joy  amid  the  doom  eternal, 

The  golden  words  of  the  great  invitation ! 


XXVII 

IF  you  fly  before  me 

Into   Paradise 
I  will  follow  upward, 

Lifted   by  your  eyes. 

The  ecstasy  of  heaven 
You  sit,  serene  and  mute, 

Your  shining  head  the  angels 
With  my  own  songs  salute. 

Not  strange  will  it  seem  to  enter, 
Led  upward  by  your  eyes; 

So  often  have  you  led  me 
Into  Paradise. 


XXVIII 

As  the  twilight,  for  sheer  love 
And  abandoned  ecstasy, 

For  the  sake  of  the  dear  dawn 
Dies,  that  dawn  may  come  to  be; 


51 

Dumb  with  adoration  dies 

At  the  lovely,  panting  breast, 
For  sheer  rapture  of  sacrifice 

Bows  his  face  along  the  west, 

O  to  perish  for  your  sake, 

O,  as  twilight  to  the  day, 
To  your  loveliness  athirst 

Give  my  very  self  away ! 

So  I  know  it  is  your  love 

That  demands  it,  not  your  hate; 
Love  is  kind,  but  very  fain, 

And   implacable  as   Fate. 


XXIX 

AGAINST  your  cheek,  and  bosom, 

Radiant,  pure,  and  white, 
I  have  heard  what  the  stars  of  morning 

Sang,  singing  for  delight. 

The  words  the  angels  whispered 

My  soul  before  the  birth, 
I  have  heard  their  echoes  wafted 

Again  about  the  earth. 


52 

Lest  ever  I  forget  them, 

One,  where  the  stars  abide, 
Lays  your  arms  about, 

Sets  your  lips  beside. 


XXX 

I  WOULD  give  you  love  for  love, 
I  would  give  you  love  for  pain, 

I  would  give  you  love  for  hate 
Ten-thousandfold  again. 

Love,  not  I,  is  master. 

Love  is  great  and  kind. 
Love  runs  on  to  love  you 

And  leaves  all  self  behind. 


XXXI 

THROUGH  the  labyrinth  of  your  bosom 
Like  an  organ's  I  hear  it  roll, 

In  the  thunderous  anger  of  love. 
The  pulse  of  the  wrath  of  your  soul ; 

At  your  bosom's  barbaric  splendor, 

Lifting  with  fierce  delight 
Long  lines  of  exuberant  beauty, 

In  the  hush,  in  the  night,  in  the  night, 


53 

Lifting  with  vast  exultation, 

Forever   and   sleeplessly, 
In  the  most  reverent  rhythm 

Of  riotous  ecstasy: 

In  the  radiant  rhythm  of  rapture 
And  the  lightnings  of  fierce  delight, 

In  the  storm  of  most  riotous  rapture, 
In  the  hush,  in  the  night,  in  the  night ! 


XXXII 

WHEN  the  earthly  joy  is  ended 
And  the  earthly  love  is  done, 

My  soul,  with  memory  drunken, 
To  the  flaming  doors  will  run. 

Angelic  lips  shall  hail  me 

With  my  own  songs  in  the  Vast — , 
The  angel  that  I  loved  so 

Shall  lift  me  up  at  last. 


XXXIII 

THE  sheer,  the  infinite  gratitude, 
Never  to  be  expressed, 

Puts  out  the  light,  that  flickers, 
Of   Song  within   my   breast. 


54 

Love  to  the  most  beloved, 

The  dear  and  the  bounteous  soul, 

The  giver  and  the  beauty, 

The  summons  and  the  goal, — 

Empty-handed,  defeated, 
With  all  his  singing  shed, 

Returns   with   love   forever 
Too  holy  to  be  said. 


XXXIV 

BURY  me  east  or  west,  when  you  come  I  will  rise  to 

greet  you. 
I  will  rise  to  greet  you  with  love  if  you  come  where 

I  lie  in  the  south. 
If  you  come  to  my  grave  in  the  north  with  love  I  will 

rise  to  greet  you, 
And  a  song  on  my  mouth. 


IV 
RADIANT  NOON 


"Love  on  thy  beauty  breaks  a  shattered  wave' 


57 


ALMOST  against  your  heart 
My  beating  heart  has  grown, 

Hardly   your  very   lips 

Are  separate  from  my  own. 

To  suit  myself  to  your  breast, 
To  suit  myself  to  your  will, 

Is  the  first  thought  at  dawn, 
The  last  at  evening  still. 

To  lay   aside  myself 

And  be  yourself  instead, 
Daily  I  give  my  life, 

And  rise  with  Song  from  the  dead. 

Yet  virgin  as  the  morning, 

Unconquerable  and  free, 
And   strange  as   at  the  first  meeting, 

Ever  you  come  to  me. 

O  the  lure  of  you  and  the  secret, 

Fairer  a  thousandfold, 
Like  the  stars  is  ever  new, 

Like  the  stars  is  ever  old! 


58 

II 

UNDER  the  flowing  robe  of  our  folded  love 

In  the  bright  rhythm  of  riotous  ecstasy, 
Rapt,  from  ourselves  to  the  stars  we  reach  upward, 

made  one 

With  the  world-rhythm  of  all  things  striving  to  be; 
Trampling  down  death  with  fierce  rapture,  we  triumph 

for  one 
Magnificent  moment  of  rapt  immortality. 


Ill 

WHERE  the  feet  beloved  tread 

The  urgent  flowers  throng, 
Light   breaks,    sound   issues,   breathless 

Beats  the  heart  of  Song. 

A  vibrance  fills  all  Beauty 

With  motion  and  excess, 
The  trodden  flowers  bless  her, 

The  wounded  flowers  bless. 

The  old  and  the  sacred  challenge 

Summons  and  compels; 
Up  through  the  breast  of  being 

The  immortal  wonder  wells. 


59 

Song,  that  was  laid  at  rest, 

Again  must  learn  to  live, 
Love,  that  has  given  all, 

Again  must   die  to  give. 


IV 

THOUGH  you  dwelt 
In  the  farthest  West, 

The   sun   should   lead  me 
To  your  breast. 

When  his  light 

Was  ebbed  and  gone 
The  evening-star 

Should  lead  me  on. 

And  if  that 

Left  heaven  above 
I  would  journey 

Led  by  love. 

I  would  seek  you 

Till  my  heart, 
Wearied  out, 

Fell  apart. 


60 

At  your  door 

I'd  lay  me  down — , 

Not  to  wake  you. 
O  my  own ! 

Nor  sleep  all  night, 
Nor  sleep  all  night, 

To  hear  your  breathing 
Soft  and  light. 


O  WOULD  in  the  moment  of  love 

I  might  bid  the  stars  stand  still, 
And  the  wheel  of  the  world  repose, 

Fixed  and  immovable! 

On  the  starry  summits  of  beauty 

Locked  in  a  long  embrace, 
With  hair  blown  backward,  together, 

Breathless,  and  face  to  face ! 

Ere  the  vision  be  shattered,  and  headlong 

From  our  dream  in  the  heights  we  be  hurled, 

From  the  cry  of  our  spirits  in  choir, 
Back  into  the  pit  of  the  world. 


61 
VI 


OF  all  God's  living  poems 
Scattered  from  east  to  west, 

Sweet,  you  are  the  dearest 
That  ever  fell  from  His  breast. 


VII 

WHITE  morning  awakes. 

Dawn  breaks  her  bars. 

God's   breath   through   the   stars 
Flickers  and  shakes. 

Again  to  the  sky 

Leaps  the  day  with  delight, 

Again  turns  the  night 
To  his  bosom  to  die. 

With  fierce  passion  they  move, 
With  the  rapture  of  pain, 
Rearisen  again 

From  the  fountains  of  love. 

In  the  old,  weary  way 

The  old  beauty  is  done — , 
Like  a  lover,  the  sun 

Leaps  to  the  day. 


62 

O  and  I  with  the  rest, 
I,  tireless,  too — 
I,  unto  you, 

I,  to  your  breast! 


VIII 

WITH  the  longing  of  a  lover 
To  possess  the  once  possessed, 

The  deep  need  for  the  familiar, 
For  the  most  beloved  breast, 

For  the  heart  the  heart  has  grown  to, 
The  dear  lips,  well-worn,  well-known 

To  yourself,  as  to  a  refuge, 
Song  turns  ever  from  his  own. 

As  a  boy's  heart  first  surrounded, 
When  shame  first  is  put  to  rout, 

With  the  sweet,  relentless  hunger 
Of  girl-arms  first  laid  about; 

To  yourself,  still  new,  still  wondrous, 
— The  dear,  opposite,  luring  love, — 

As  at  first  Song  still  surrenders 
All  the  ecstasy  thereof. 


63 
IX 


DAILY  from  breasts  o'erthrown 
To  Beauty's  immortal  knees 

The  sacrifice  of  love 
Rises  to  appease. 


FOR  the  sheer  joy 

Of  gratitude 
I  shed  my  songs 

Like  living  blood. 

I  stab  my  heart 

With   the    thought   of   you, 
To  kiss  the  blade 

The  song  pours  through; 

To  touch  and  thrill 

And  fill  you,  sweet, 
With  living  love 

From  head  to  feet ! 

XI 

WITH  the  sullen  rhythm  of  rapture, 
As  of  thousand  viols  in  throng 

Slow  thrilling  with  resonant  rapture, 
My  bosom  draws  you  along, 


64 

Slow  lapsing  with  resonant  rapture — ; 

And  buoyant  with  glad  excess 
Lifts  up  the  long  level  and   follows 

Your  own  with  exuberant  stress. 

O  love,  as  a  storm  from  heaven 

With  laughter  of  lightning  that  leaps, 

As  a  cloud  through  the  darkness  of  heaven, 
As  a  cloud  through  the  billowing  deeps, 

With  delight,  as  of  thousand  viols 

Drawn  across  by  deep  bow-strings  in  throng, 
In  a  holy  whirlwind  of  rapture 

I  whirl  you  and  bear  you  along! 

Till  the  light  break  through  it  of  love, 

Break — and  from  sea  to  sea 
Spans,  in  a  shining  shower, 

The  rainbow  of  ecstasy. 


XII 

NEVER  your  beauty 
Can  satisfy  me, 

'Tis  but  as  a  rose 
Tossed  into  the  sea. 


65 

Though  I  gazed  to  the  doom, 
Till   mine   eyes   had   grown   old, 

In  the  morning  again 
I  had  eyes  to  behold. 

Though  I  died  in  your  arms 

At  dawn  of  delight, 
At  your  chamber  again 

Should  find  me  the  night. 

O,  as  clouds  to  the  earth 

In  a  shower  of  rain, 
I  return,  I  return 

To  perish  again ! 


XIII 

WHEN  you  spread  your  arms  to  take  me, 
When  your  breath  comes  hard  and  fast, 

Song  and  love  of  Song  forsake  me 
At  the  source  of  Song  at  last. 

Hushed  and   folded  at  your  bosom 

Starry  longing  fades  away, 
In  yourself  all  memories  of  you 

Melt,  as  morning  into  day; 


66 

Till  I  rise,  refreshed  and  quickened, 

To  resume  the  singing  race, 
From  the  oblivion  of  your  bosom, 

From  the  death  of  your  embrace. 


XIV 

O  INSATIABLE  and  sweet, 

Loved  more  than  I  can  say! 

Take  my  whole  of  love 
And  cast  it  all  away. 

Ask  more  of  me  and  more, 
More  than  I  can  give — 

Waste  it  at  your  lips — 
It  is  not  fit  to  live. 

Waste  it  in  a  breath, 

All  that  I  have  spent; 
Ask  more  of  me  and  more, 

And  still  be  discontent. 

Ask  more  of  me  and  more, 

Till    Love    have    nothing    more. 

O  insatiable  and  sweet, 

Ask  more  of  me  and  more ! 


67 
XV 

NEVER  can  I  escape  you 

Though  I  roam  the  whole  world  through — , 
If  I  leave  you,  journeying  westward, 

From  the  east  I  come  to  you. 

XVI 

WITH  weariness  abandoned 

And  the  ecstasy  of  pain 
Love  returns  to  love  you 

Again  and  yet  again. 

Insatiate  as  the  sunrise, 

Sleepless,  flushed,  and  bright, 

Returning  and  returning 
To  perish  of  the  light; 

Seraphically  weary, 

As    toward   the   twilight,   day, — 
Love  to  what  is  lovely 

Gives  himself  away. 

XVII 

O  MY  own,  my  delight, 

I  am  here  at  your  call, 

Soul,  body  and  all, 
In  the  day,  in  the  night! 


68 

Not  grudgingly,  never 
Yours  by  decree, 
By  rights  that  must  be, 

But  wholly  and   ever. 

The  poets  above 

Sing  sadly  of  Beauty, 
Of  Love  and  of  Duty — 

I  give  you  my  love. 

O,  as  waves  of  the  sea 

The  waves   flowing  after, 
I  draw  you  with  laughter, 

I  follow  and  flee  ! 

O,  as  storms  in  a  crowd 
To  the  meadows  laid  bare, 
I  rush  to  you  there, — 

I  fade  as  a  cloud ! 

Lest  loving  should  grieve  you, 
As  joy  grieves  the  heart, 
I  touch  you,  and  part, 

I  love  you,  and  leave  you. 

Yet  still,  like  a  star 

That  the  daylight  obscures, 
I   return,  I  am  yours, 

I  return  from  afar. 


69 
XVIII 

To  his  grave  within  your  bosom 

Song  returns  with  weary  wings, 
To  the  source  whence  first  his  ardors 

Broke  with  love  that  soars  and  sings, 

To  his  sunset  in  your  bosom, 

Vast,  seraphical,  and  bright, 
Where,  as  at  heaven's  widening  wonder 

Dies  the  wild  and  wayward  light; 

To  his  grave  where  in  your  bosom, 

As  the  twilight  in  the  west, 
He  must  perish,  he  must  perish — , 

To  the  silence  of  your  breast. 


XIX 

DAILY  would  I  give 

All  the  love  I  have 
To  break  against  your  beauty 

Like  a  wasted  wave. 


V 
BIRD-SONGS  AND  ROSES 


'Would  I  might  hide  me  in  my  song 
To  kiss  the  lips  from  which  it  flows — " 


ONCE  on  a  starry  night, 

Once  on  a  starry  night, 
Dear,  I  was  full  of  you 

As  the  dawn  of  the  young,  sweet  light. 

The  rare,  wild  pulse  of  your  presence 
Flooded  me  through  and  through; 

Fresh  from  your  arms  I  rose, 
Quickened  and  filled  with  you ! 

Since  when  my  heart  and  my  body, 

My   song   and   my   spirit,    too, 
Are  quickened  and  filled  with  you, 

Quickened   and  filled   with  you! 


II 


THE  air  is  full  of  dawn  and  Spring, 
Outside  the  room  I   see 

A  swallow,  like  a  shaft  of  light, 
Shift  sideways  suddenly. 


74 

There  is  no  room  for  death  at  all 

In  earth  or  heaven  above; 

He  never  yet  believed  in  death 

Who  ever  learned  to  love. 

Build  me  a  tomb  when  I  am  dead, 

But  leave  a  window  free 
That  I  may  watch  the  swallow's  flight, 

And  Spring  come  back  to  me. 

Build  me  a  tomb  of  steel  and  stone, 
But  leave  one  window  free, 

That  I  may  feel  the  Spring  come  back 
And  You  come  back  to  me ! 


Ill 

WHO  mixes  with  radiant  Beauty 
Himself   to   beauty   grows, 

Fresh  with  the  roseleaf  slips 
The  raindrop  from  the  rose. 

The  cloud,  that  to  the  sunrise 

Stoops  as  to  a  bride, 
Bright  from  her  breast  returns, 

Quickened  and  glorified. 


75 
Touching  at  its  source 

And  sunrise  again,  the  soul 
Back  from  the  breast  of  love 

Quickened  returns,  and  whole. 

So  lovelier  from  your  lips 
Each  day  I  rise  again, 
And  stain  against  your  breast 


76 

When  the  wild  heart  grows  wayward 

Straightway  within  it  stirs, 
In  the  blood's  beat  to  subdue  it 

And  lead  it  back  to  hers, 

The  pulse  of  the  beloved 

That  thrills  it  through  and  through. 
O  heart-beat  of  my  heart, 

How  may  I  fly  from  you! 


77 
VI 


BEAUTY  is  contagious, 

It  springs  from  age  to  age, 

From  poet  unto  poet, 
Page  to  shining  page. 

A  little  from  your  lips 

And  from  your  eyes,  my  dove, 
Mine  catch  fire  with 

Forever,  Song  and  Love. 


VII 

THE  twilight  is  starred, 
The  dawn  has  arisen — , 

Light  breaks  from  the  east 
And  Song  from  her  prison. 

Faint  odors  and  sounds 
The  west-wind  discloses 

Of  flowers  and  birds, 
Of  laughter  and  roses. 

It  is  time  to  be  gone, 

Day  scatters  the  gloom — • 

But  still  at  my  side, 
But  here  in  the  room, 


78 

Like  the  angel  of  Life, 

Too  kind  to  depart, 
You  hang  at  my  lips ! 
You  hang  at  my  heart! 


VIII 

THERE,  wherever  you  come, 

A  Springtime  breath  and  bloom 

You  bring  with  you  of  love, 
That  floods  the  very  room. 

When  you  are  fled  away 

Still  trembles  through  the  gloom 
A  breath,  a  sense  of  love, 

That  floods  the  very  room. 


IX 

MY  love  has  chained  and  humbled  me 

That  was  once  so  heaven-free; 

To  Beauty  and  the  lure  thereof 

She  chained  me  with  the  chain  of  love. 

She  came  to  me  with  silent  feet, 
My  heart  trembled,  the  blood  beat — , 
Up  through  my  life  the  longing  welled 
That  her  loveliness  compelled. 


79 

Life,  and  love,  and  song,  and  all 
She  steals  from  me  who  am  her  thrall, 
Till  my  very  self  has  grown, 
Through  long  love,  into  her  own; 

Till  at  her  breast  in  starry  pain 
Surrendering,  radiantly  self-slain, 
I  die  to  be  re-born  again ! 


To  the  lordship  of  her  being 
And  the  dear  heart  above 

The  loveliness  beloved 

Bows  down  the  heart  of  love. 

How  sweet  the  yoke  of  beauty 
And  the  soft  arms  that  chain 

Love's  flight,  from  the  beloved 
How  sweet  the  touch  of  pain ! 

She  bids  all  hearts  be  humbled, 
That  wait  for  love's  reward, 

To  the  laughable,  lovely  beauty- 
O  love,  it  is  not  hard ! 


80 

XI 

MORE  beautiful  unto  myself 

Myself  through  the  love  of  you  grows — 
If  the  sweetness  be  hers,  or  the  rose's, 

Hardly  the  west-wind  knows. 


XII 

As  a  wind  from  over  the  flowers, 
Sweet  from  the  flowers  grown, 

Yourself  I  bear  unto  all  men 
And  think  that  it  is  my  own. 


XIII 

ALTHOUGH  your  arms  around  me 
At  morning  fade  away, 

Around  me  in  my  spirit 
I  feel  them  all  the  day. 

Not  all  at  once  you  leave  me, 
But,  gradually  with  pain 

Withdrawing,  leave  behind  you 
A  print  in  nerve  and  vein: 


81 

Possessive,  sweet,  and  poignant, 

A  May-time  pang  and  scent, 
The  perfume  of  your  presence 

Through  all  my  pulses  sent. 

Within  my  blood  a  memory 

And  sense  of  you,  like  Spring, 

Lingers  fading,  fading — , 
And  in  the  songs  I  sing. 


XIV 

'Tis  not  my  foes 

That  have  brought  me  low, 
Nor  conquered  me 

The  arm  of  a  foe. 

Two  eyebrows  arched, 
My  head  in  the  drouth 

Of     the     dust     have     rolled — , 
And  a  laughing  mouth. 


XV 

O  LIPS  that  mine  have  wearied 
So  many  and  many  a  time — , 

O  heart  that  mine  has  beat  to 

Through  all  the  ways  of  rhyme! 


82 

Almost  into  yourself 

My  very  self  has  grown — 
Hardly  your  lips,  my  sweet, 
Are  separate  from  my  own! 

But  again  and  again  to  have  you, 
To  be  mingled  more  and  more 

With  the  loveliness  I  love  so, — 
Insatiate  as  before — 

With  the  inmost  pulse  of  your  presence 
To  be  flooded  through  and  through, 

O  irrevocably  to  be  mixed 
With  the  very  self  of  you ! 

My  life  turns  back  forever, 
How  many  and  many  a  time, 

With  ecstasy  abandoned 
And  weariness  sublime! 


XVI 

MY  Own  is  proud  and  cruel 

All  other  hearts  above, 
She  has  chained  me  to  her  chariot 

With  the  chain  of  love. 


83 

0  imperious  and  lovely ! 

0  laughable,  my  Own! 

1  acknowledge  you  and  greet  you, 

1  bow  before  your  throne. 


XVII 

I  AM  filled,  I  am  filled, 
I  am  filled  full  of  you, 

As  the  meadows  with  light, 
As   the   morning  with   dew ! 

Mine  alone,  of  all  born, 

Is  elected  the  breast 
To  be  bearer  of  you 

To  the  East  and  the  West. 

For  joy  all  the  day, 

For  joy  all  the  night, 
My  love  cries  aloud. 

I  laugh  for  delight! 

The  beautiful  burden 

At  heart,  I  go  forth, 
Drunken  with  song, 

To   the    South   and   the    North. 


84 

O  all  men  and  women 

And  angels,  draw  near — 

Look  in  my  heart! 
Look — what  is  here ! 

XVIII 

ALL  my  love  for  my  sweet 
I  bared  one  day  to  her — . 

Carelessly  she  took  it 
And  like  a  conqueror. 

She  bowed  the  neck  of  my  soul 

To  fit  it  to  her  yoke, 
She  bridled  the  lips  of  Song — ; 

Fear  within  me  awoke. 

But  Love  cried,  "Swiftly,  swiftly 

Bear  her  along  the  road, 
Beautiful  is  the  goal 

And  Beauty  is  the  goad." 

XIX 

YOUR  beauty  fades  into  my  circling  strength, 

As  the  pale  starlight  into  the  wide  day. 

Ah  love,  but  when  the  noon  of  joy  is  passed, 

Fulfilled  of  you,  filled  full  of  you  at  last, 

Backward  into  your  beauty  ebbs  my  strength, 

As  into  the  worn  twilight  the  wild  day ! 


85 
XX 


ONE  molten  star, 

Afar  withdrawn, 
Winks  liquid  lids 

In  the  web  of  dawn. 

The  web  of  the  dew 
O'er  the  world  lies  spun. 

The  choir  of  the  birds 
Salutes  the  sun. 

Bird-songs  and  roses' 

Faint  perfume 
Flood  through  the  window 

Of  the  dim  room. 

But  you  lie   laughing 

For  sweet  excess 
In  the  wild  hour 

Of  loveliness, 

In  the  dear  rage 

Of  reckless  love. 
The  worn  star  pales 

In   heaven   above. 

The  morning  widens 
On  the  clear  rim — , 

Ah  the  last  star 

Grows  pale  and  dim! 


86 

O  fuller  and  fuller 
Through  the  vast 
And  hollow  vault, 
At  last,  at  last, 

Floods  the  quick  flame 

Of  influent  fire! 
With  all  the  tongues 

Of  her  core  in  choir, 

Bathed  round  in  light 

And  trembling  dew, 
With  the  life  beloved 

Thrilled  through  and  through, 

The  heart  of  the  world 
For  love  that  aches, 

Filled  full,  too  full, 
Leaps  up  and  breaks. 

At  the  bright  breast 

Of  burning  day 
Breaks,  and  gives 

Herself  away! 

Breaks,  and  at 

The  mere  touch  thereof 
Overflows  in  a  rapture 

Of  welling  love! 


87 
One  with  a  cry, 

In    the  morning's   white 
Serene  expanse 

Of  vast  delight, 

One  with  a  moan, 

In  the  holy  and  thrilled 
Dread  hush  at  last 

Of  all  fulfilled, 

Through  laughter  and  tears 

Re-mingling,  we 
Crown  the  world-chord 

With  ecstasy. 


XXI 

EVER  from  your  embrace 

Refreshed  I  arise  and  strong, 

With  a  new  song  from  your  lips, 
And  from  your  heart  with  a  song. 


XXII 

THROUGH  all  my  body,  nerve  and  vein, 
Sweet  traces  linger  of  your  own; 

As  Winter,  that  at  Spring's  heart  has  lain, 
Almost  into  the  Spring  has  grown. 


I   am  drenched  with  you  and  saturate, 

As  the  morning  with  the  young,  bright  dew- 
As  the  sea-wind  with  the  fresh,  far  sea 
I  am  drunken  and  saturate  with  you. 

Through  all  my  spirit,  dream  and  deed, 
Sweet  traces  linger  of  your  own — 

Through  love  of  you,  through  love  of  you, 
Almost  yourself,  sweet,  am  I  grown ! 


XXIII 

As  a  star  that  from  light's  prison 
Freed,  returns  to  prisoning  light; 

From  your  breast,  dear,  to  your  breast,  dear, 
Measures  all  my  freedom's  flight. 


XXIV 

LIFE  went  forth  in  the  strength 
Of  the  morning  from  his  lair — 

The  first  young  Joy  he  found, 
He  seized  it  by  the  hair. 

So  ruthlessly  your  heart 
Against  my  own  I  pressed, 

And  whirled  against  my  own 
The  radiance  of  your  breast. 


89 

But  clinging  about  my  neck 

Your  arms  to  a  taming  yoke 
Grew,  that  stilled  my  heart; 

Love  within  me  awoke. 

Then  at  first  was  I  sad — , 

But  the  old,  the  rebellious  strength 

Tore  my  lips   apart, 

Turned  to  a  song  at  length ! 


XXV 

SONG  at  the  source  of  Song 
Sweet  it  is  to  confess, 

And  loveliness  to  humble 
At  the  feet  of  Loveliness. 


VI 

THE  MYSTERY  AND  THE 
MYTH 


"The  touch,  the  clasp,  the  old,  sweet  earthly  fashion 
Of  love  is  but  a  lovely  allegory — " 


93 


Now  in  the  east 

The  old  mystery  of  love  is  done  again, 

Along  the  east 

Burns  the  huge  rapture  of  her  ecstatic  pain: 

Sweet  foes  forever — 

Twilight,  with  whom  Day's  fiery  outlines  blend 

Till  she  be  lost— 

And  Light  at  war  with  Darkness  till  the  end. 

In  the  old  way 

Is  done  again  the  most  reverent  sacrifice, 

Twilight  and  Day 

Mingle,  the  breast  that  lives  and  the  breast  that  dies. 

The  breast  that  lures, 

And  the  most  patient  and  sacrificial  breast; 

The  breast  that  endures 

And  the  breast  that  fulfills  quicken  with  one  unrest. 

Dear  foes  forever 

And  lovers,  in  the  old  war  of  love  and  life, 

Opposites  ever 

And  loving  opponents  in  the  eternal  strife! 


94 

Along  the  east 

Their  bright  limbs  burn  through  the  clouds  that  they 

divide, 

Along  the  east 
Their  luminous  love,  like  a  bridegroom  and  a  bride. 

Radiant  they  mix — 4 

The  splendor  of  the  bright  love  that  longs  to  live, 

The  patient  shadow 

Of  the  dark  love  that  gives,  and  dies  to  give. 

A  sudden  hush, 

As  of  bowed  heads  and  reverence  forevermore — 

Morning  arises. 

Radiant  o'er  the  wide  world  his  waters  pour ! 

Morning  arises, 

Hailed  with  a  myriad  songs  to  the  living  sun, 

Beauty  completed, 

And  the  old  sacrifice  and  mystery  done. 


II 
THE  WIND  AND  THE  SEA 

SWEET,   you   tremble, 

Sweet,  you  move 
Like  a  woman 

In  the  anger  of  love. 


95 

For  love  of  you, 

For  love  of  you, 
My  body  trembles 

Through  and  through. 

Dear,  my  heart 

Beats  laughingly 
To  feel  your  beauty 

Under  me. 

My  body's  joy, 

The  heart  you  press 
Sobs,  beneath 

Your  loveliness. 


Let  me  have  you 
All  my  own, 

Bared  to  me 

And  overthrown! 


Let  us  mingle, 

You  and  I, 
Each   of   each 

Drink,  and  die ! 

Let  me  fill  you 

With  my  strength! 
Pour  my  love 

Through    all    your    length! 


96 

0  the  glad  love 
That  bids   me  live! 

1  lift  my  lips. 
Give — give ! 


Ill 

NIGHT  looked  forth  from  the  tower  of  morning 

Over  the  flowery  lands, 
She  took  the  young  and  the  sickle  moon 

For  a  scimitar  in  her  hands, 

And  drove  the  stars  along  the  sky 

Like  little  wanton  foes — 
She  saw  not  'twas  her  lover  the  sun 

Who  slew  them  as  he  rose. 

He  rushed  to  meet  her,  she  let  fall 

Her  flowers  and  hid  her  face; 
He  drowned  her  in  his  arms  all  day 

In  the  light  of  his   embrace. 

And  died  for  love  of  her.     At  dusk 

She  left  him  where  he  lay, 
And  rose  with  silent  laughter  up 

Along  the  starry  way. 


97 
IV 

O  THE  challenge  that  burns 

In  a  laughing  girl's  eyes ! 
The  boy's   heart  that  turns, 

The  heart  that  replies ! 

The  joy  that  fulfills, 

And    the    love    that    endures — , 
The  heart  that  follows, 

The  heart  that  lures ! 

In  the  old,  fierce  war 

Of  woman  and  man, 
Their  secret  battle 

Since  life  began, 

Dear  foes  forever 

And   opposites    still; 
Fulfillers  forever 

Of  one  deep  will ! 


V 


WITH  the  foam-white  arms  of  virgins 

In  choral  flocks  afar 
The   thronging  billows   rustle 

And  race  across  the  bar. 


98 

They  follow  the  god  with  longing 

Along  the  sunlit  way, 
With  silver  footsteps  thronging, 
And  laughter  up  the  bay, 

With  little,  delicate  bodies 

Poised  dancing;  the  sun's  flame 

Pierces  them — all  the  water 
Quivers  for  love  and  shame. 


VI 

You  are  the  bright,  curved  shore. 
And  I  the  waves  that  destroy 

On   her   beauty   their   strength 

With  joy,  with  joy. 

The  meadow  you, — I,  the  storm 
That  dies  to  shed  from  above 

On  her  flowers  his  life, 

With  love,  with  love. 

I  am  the  bird  that  follows, 
And  you  the  hills  of  the  south. 
— The  loving  mouth, 
And  the  laughing  mouth. 


99 

O  love,  I,  the  arrow  that  speeds 
Hungrily  to  its  mark, 

And  you,  the  breast 

That  sinks  in  the  dark! 

The  hurrying  heart  that  follows, 
The  hushed,  sweet  heart  that  flies, 

The   heart  that   exults, 

The  heart  that  sighs ! 

Ever,  forever,  the  spirit 

That  seeks,  and  the  spirit  that  lures, 

The  love   that   fulfills, 

The  love  that  endures! 


VII 

TOWARD  the  girl  the  boy's  face  turning 
Flashes  with  keen  love's  delight, 

For  her  beauty  ever  draws  him 
Nearer    with    ecstatic    might. 

And  she  reads  the  wordless  challenge, 
And  most  swiftly  she  replies, 

Darting  scorn  in  ardent  challenge 
From  the  heaven  of  her  eyes. 


100 

Each  in  each  through  veils  of  terror 

Recognizes,  dimly  known 
Through  dim  beauty,  the  dear  beauty 

That  makes  war  upon  his  own. 

Yet  she  has  the  woman's  pity 
For  her  lover,  she  arrays 

For  his  joy  her  body's  beauty 
Secretly  in  many  ways. 

And  to  bathe  amid  the  aura 

Of  her  being,  draw  more  near 

To  her  maidhood  (is  his  longing), 
Dewy-fresh  and  morning-clear; 

To  be  spilt  across  her  beauty 
All  his  ardor,  to  destroy 

On  her  love  the  clear  and  crystal 
Radiance  of  his  running  joy. 

Till   they   rush   and   flow   together, 
Interpenetrate  and  blend, 

Weaving  into  one  another 

With  white  rapture  at  the  end. 

Till  the  soft  yoke  of  her  beauty 
Tame,  and  all  subdue  the  stress 

Of  his  wild  and  veering  ardor, 
Humbled  in  her  loveliness ! 


101 
VIII 

THE  sea-wind  seizes  the  sea-wave 

And  breaks  her  beauty  in  two ; 
She  sobs,  she  sinks,  she  flutters, 

She  trembles  all  through  and  through, 
"Sweet,   I   die,   I   die, 

Of  you,  at  least  of  you !" 


IX 

THE  lover's  radiant  longing  in  the  calm 

Reality  of  the  self  beloved  dies, 
The  mother  in   her   children,  the  brave   Spring 

Of  the  insatiate  Summer's  young,  sweet  eyes. 

The  soft,  unselfish  darknesses  but  roll 

Around  the  stars  to  make  them  be  more  bright. 

Death  suffers  to  be  unlovely  that  more  clear 
Shine  out  the  lovely  face  of  Life's  delight. 

Honor  the  young  and  the  rejoicing  Dawn 

For  whose  dear  sake  the  Twilight  dies  away, 

Nor  quite  forget  the  sacrificial  part 

The  tender  and  self-renouncing  shadows  play. 


102 

X 

RECKLESS  and  free, 

In  his  arms  with  delight, 
Like  a  bride  bare  and  bright, 

The  Wind  seizes  the  Sea. 

The  Wind  seizes  the  Sea 
That  his  longing  denies 
And  opposes,  and  sighs, 

And  strains  to  be  free. 

They  wrestle  and  close 

In  the  long,  foaming  fields, 
Till  her  loveliness  yields 

And  lies  down  in  repose. 

She   lies   down   like   a   bride 
To  accept  of  his  will, 
And  the  waters  are  still, 

The  wave-ways  subside. 

He  bows  her  waves  over, 
Her  strength  overthrown 
Lies  bared  to  his  own, 

As  lover  to  lover. 

O  with  rhythmical  stress 
She  sobs  softly  under 
The  weight  of  that  wonder, 

That  wild  loveliness! 


103 
She  flutters  and  moves, 

O  to  feel,  overthrown, 

Triumph  over  her  own 
The  life  that  she  loves! 

Her  body  that  sighs 

Leans  upward  to  crave — 

O  wave  on  sweet  wave 
Foams  upward,  and  dies ! 

At  the  touch  of  his  strength ; 

Till  all  of  her  love 

To  the  lover  above 
Lies  subject  at  length. 

Ere  his  life  draw  away, 

And  bride-like  she  lies, 

Panting  soft  with  closed  eyes, 
In  disheveled  array, 

With    quick   heaving   breast 

Where  his  beauty  was  borne, 

Seraphic  and  worn, 
And  weary,  and  blessed. 

XI 

ON  the  breast  of  the  Morning 

The  Twilight  again 
Love-drunken  leans, 

Ere  she  be  slain. 


104 

The  heart  of  the  Morning 

Is  kind,  but  his   eyes 
Are  sleepless  with  love — 

Drinking  she  dies. 

On  the  beautiful  bosom, 
Bright  with  disdain, 

Breaks  the  dear  heart 

Of  the  Twilight  in  twain. 


XII 

MY  longing,  like  the  rain-wind. 

Whose  sorrow  bends  above 
The  young  and  folded  flower, 

Came  swinging  to  my  love. 

I  told  her  all  my  secret, 
I  told  her  all  my  pain. 

She  opened  all  her  beauty 

To  the  sad  and  sighing  rain. 

She  opened  all  her  beauty, 
Like  a  young,  virgin  rose, 

Tenderly,  whose  petals 

First  toward  the  rain  unclose. 


105 
Her  eyes  were  full  of  pity 

For  my  sorrow's  sake, 
She  lifted  up  her  lips. 

Her  beauty  whispered,  "Take — " 

And  all  her  joy  she  gave  me, 

And  bounteously  she  gave 
The  young  joy  of  her  beauty 

With  wondering  lips  and  brave. 

The  sad  and  the  silent  secret 

Of  her  being  she  laid  bare — 
O  eagerly  I  hurried, 

I  rushed  to  meet  it  there ! 

And  all  her  beauty's  flower 

Fell  wasted  leaf  by  leaf, 
The  young  and  the  virgin  wonder — 

And  left  me  to  my  grief. 


XIII 
DAY  TO  SUNRISE 

'You    must   perish    as    I    kindle, 
You  must  darken  that  mine  eyes 

May   be   brightened   as   yours   dwindle, 
You  must  wane  that  I  may  rise. 


106 

"You  must  die  to  feed  my  living, 
From  your  death  my  beauty  lives/' 

Life  said  to  the  joy  of  living, 
Love  that  takes  to  love  that  gives, 

The  Girl-morning  to  the  Sunrise, 
The   beloved   to  her   own, 

"You  and  you  alone  must  perish 
At   my   heart   and   mine   alone. 

"All  your  ardor  to  my  longing 
You  must  render  up,  and  waste 

On  my  beauty  all  your  being — 
O  beloved,  let  us  haste!" 


SUNRISE  TO  DAY 

Cried  the  Sunrise  to  the  Morning, 
"Let  me  render  up  and  spend 

On  your  beauty  all  my  ardor, 
Love  and  longing  to  the  end. 

"O  most  radiantly  lovely, 
Life  for  love  is  light  to  give, 

Better  in  the  self  beloved 
Than  ourselves  it  is  to  live ! 


107 
"O  dear  self  to  follow  after, 

All  the  life  within  me  throngs 
From  my  breast  to  the  beloved's, 
To  the  breast  where  life  belongs! 

"To  your  bosom  I  confide  it, 

All  the  longing,  the  delight 
That  must  die  to  love  you  wholly." 
Eastward  all  the  day  grew  bright. 


VII 
LIBERATION 


"Thy  love  sets  free  my  spirit 
To  the  fields  of  Love  afar, 

As  the  dawn  sets  free  the  morning, 
The  dusk,  the  evening-star/' 


Ill 


As  the  morning-star  ecstatic, 
Lost,  into  the  morning  moves ; 

So  my  spirit  fades  forever 
Into  the  dear  self  she  loves. 

As  wild  rivers  pour  and  perish, 
Fall  and  flow  into  the  sea; 

So  my  self  runs  on  with  longing 
Toward  the  self  I  long  to  be. 

There  at  last  I  know  my  spirit 
Radiantly  self-slain,  self -lost, 

One  with  the  great  self  of  Beauty, 
Part  of  all  I  love  the  most. 


II 

WHEN  in  your  arms  I  hear  it, 
The  laboring  of  your  heart, 

All  little  thoughts  desert  me, 
All  little  dreams  depart. 


112 

On  the  dear,  baffled  bosom 

Love  leans  with  bated  breath, 
To  hear  the  life  beloved 

Pouring  on  toward  death. 

All  that  all  life  would  utter 
Out  of  the  lonely  Vast, 

Fugitive,  fierce,  and  holy, 
Speaks  to  me  there  at  last. 


Ill 

O  BUT  to  have  you  entire, 

To  rush,  to  run  to  your  face, 
All  thoughts  of  myself  to  extinguish 

Forever  in  your  embrace! 

To  abandon  myself  completely ! 

At  last  of  myself  to  be  free! 
Drenched  with  you,  filled  with  you,  full  of  you; 

Till   drunken   and   giddily, 

Dreaming  into  your  beauty, 

Through  vein  and  spirit  I  feel 
Thrill  upward,  completely  possessive, 

Your  spirit  steadily  steal! 


113 
IV 

WHEN  the  lightning  of  desire 
From  our  limbs  has  taken  flight 

Faint  they  tremble,  as  their  longing 
Ebbs  and  mingles  in  the  night. 

As  the  radiant  storms  of  Beauty 

Ever  far  and  farther  roll, 
Worn  they  leave  them,  the  ebbed  wonder 

Worn  and  weary  leaves  the  soul; 

Yet  seraphic  and  exalted, 

As  drenched  fields  the  evening-star 
Shines  upon  when  heaven's  lyre 

Moans  with  memories  afar. 


LET  me  open  to  the  beauty 
Of  your  being  all  my  breast, 

Life  and  longing,  soul  and  body, 
Arms,  lips,  eyes,  and  all  the  rest ! 

Drink  deep  draughts  in  all  around  me 
Of  your  beauty,  drink  and  drain 

Deep  draughts  of  yourself  around  me, 
Love  and  loveliness  and  pain! 


114 

Give  myself  to  you  completely, 
Wholly  and  beyond  recall — < 
Joy  and  sorrow,  soul  and  body, 

Life,  and  love,  and  song,  and  all ! 


VI 

WHEN  our  two  hearts 
Rhyme  in  the  dawn, 

Beyond  all  Life 
I  am  withdrawn. 

Beyond  all  Evil 

And  all  Good 
With  you,  in  a 

White  solitude. 

Urging  beyond  them 
Breath  on  breath, 

Faint  follow  the  feet 
Of  Life  and   Death. 


VII 

FAINT   and  weary,  as   from  Lethe, 
Drowned  my  memories  and  my  pain, 

From  the  oblivion  of  your  bosom, 
From  your  arms  I  rise  again. 


115 

Strange  and  cool  breathes  on  my  forehead 
The  first  twilight's  starry  breath; 

Beauty  lies  fulfilled  and  perfect, 
And  fulfilled  are  life  and  death. 

From  the  opiate  arms  of  darkness, 

From  the  beautiful  embrace, 
Lovely,  faint,  and  satiated, 

Morning   lifts    a    dreamless    face. 


VIII 

As  rivers  rush  in  tumult 
And  crumble  in  the  sea, 

I  am  lost,  I  am  slain  in  you, 
I    am   drowned    eternally. 

Yet  back  in  a  cloud  of  joy, 
In  a  shower  of  living  rain, 

To  his  heights  among  the  hills 
You  pour  love  back  again. 

O  to  the  being  beloved, 

To  perish  and  be  reborn, — 

The  strange  and  luring  presence 
Refreshing  as  the  morn, 


116 

Love  runs  on  forever 

As  rivers  to  the  sea; 
From  myself  you  set  me  free ! 
From  myself  you  set  me  free! 


IX 

NIGHT  and  day  my  youth  is  longing 

For  your  loveliness 
That  must  tame  the  fiery  ardors 

Of  his  wild  excess; 

For  your  beauty  to  subdue  his 

Radiant  rage,  that  dies, 
Drunken  down  the  grave  and  solemn 

Thirsting   of   your   eyes. 

Ah,  all  pain  and  longing  ended, 

Wearied  out,  to  rest 
Once  again  at  the  oblivious 

Lethe  of  your  breast. 

See,  my  youth  is  all  in  flower 
(The  dread  shape  draws  near) 

That   no   love   but   yours   may   gather- 
And  you  are  not  here. 


117 

Ah  the  kindness,  once  to  feel  them — 

The  dear  lips,  that  crave 
Through  our  pain,  of  the  great  bounty, 

Well,  and  wild  to  save. 

O  once  more  to  meet  together, 

Ere  the  Fates  destroy, 
For  the  rhythmical  abandon, 

The  barbaric  joy! 


IF  to  me  you  prove  faithless, 
And  to  this  heart  that  sings, 

I  will  stoop  and  seek  your  image 
In    the    universe   of    things. 

Think   you   within   you   only 

You   have  your   dwelling   place — ! 

From  field  and  hill  and  flower 
Looks  out  at  me  your  face ; 

From  flowers  and  from  music, 
And  from  my  living  song — 

There  will  I  love  you  still, 
There  will  I  love  you  long. 


118 

XI 

WHEN  have  I  lost  myself  wholly! 

When  at  last  am  I  free 
From  the  barriers  of  division 

That  separate  you  and  me ! 

When  radiant,  fierce,  and  holy, 
With  heartbeats  running  in  song, 

To  the  core  of  the  burning  beauty 

From  the  ends  of  the  world  we  throng. 

In  the  hush,  in  the  holiness  of  love, 

In  the  moment  when  the  mystery  is  done, 

From  the  agony  of  division 
We  rise  to  the  j  oy  of  one ! 


XII 

MY  harbor  is  gained  and  the  goal  of  my  Song  at  last, 

The  toil  and  the  tumult  cease; 

Song  steers  with  sea-dripping  wings   into  silence  at 
last 

And  the  haven  of  peace. 


VIII 
REVELATION  AND  REST 


'To  bring  you  the  secret  of  beauty 
The  beloved  comes  from  afar — " 


121 


DAY  scatters,  but  the  night  brings  home, 

She  gathers  in  the  west 
The    everlasting    stars,    and    me 

To  the  beloved  breast. 


II 

DEAR,  you  are  peace — , 

All  my  wild  longings  and  my  sorrows  vain 

Faint  at  your  heart, 

All  of  desire's  dim  and  starry  train; 

Self-sacrificed  at  last, 

Love  at  your  breast  sinks  radiantly  self-slain. 

You  are  the  beauty 

Into  which  longing  slowly  climbs  toward  peace 

Through  starry  pain, — the  beauty 

Wherein   all  longing  finds   supreme  release, 

The  still  and  steady  beauty 

Within  whose  calm  all  love  and  longing  cease. 


122 

The  grave  of  pain 

And  all  desire's  never-wearying  length, 

The  shore  where  love 

Breaks  like  a  wasted  wave  his  radiant  strength, 

The  grave  of  Song 

And  of  all  singing  and  all  life  at  length ! 

My  thoughts  of  you 

Rise  with  the  stars  at  dusk  of  every  day, 

Till,  like  the  dawn, 

Coming  you  drown  all  thoughts  of  you  away; 

Lost  in  the  light  of  love 

At  last,  all  starry  longings   fade  away. 


Ill 

AT  the  breast  beloved 
All  things  in  the  end 

Speak  to  us  a  language 
We  can   comprehend. 

At  last  the   pain  and  terror 
Of  life  and  longing  cease, 

The  evil  and  the  error 
Dwindle  into  peace. 


123 
All  the  joy  of  living, 

The  mystery  of  breath, 
Stoop  to  us  like  angels — 

And  the   face  of  Death. 


IV 

WHEN   flushed  and  disheveled  in  your  arms   I   lie 
In  the  hush  of  death,  as  once  in  the  hush  of  love, 

No  pity  my  lips  would  crave  of  yours  as  they  die — 
Give  me  the  old,  sweet,  wanton  touch  of  their  love! 


ALL  your  life's  adventure — 
Joy  and  hate  and  love, 

Are  but  moving  shadows, 
Hints   of  the  Above. 

But  as  signs  to  guide  you 
Onward  toward  the  goal, 

All  the   outer  actions 
Whirled  before  the  soul. 

All  that  you  have  suffered, 
All  that  you  have  gained, 

Are  as  symbols  sent  you 
From  the   Unattained. 


124 

Friend,  and  foe,  and  lover 

Lying  at  your  heart, 
Speak  to  you  the  message, 

Greet  you,  and  depart. 

Still  the  Never-changing, 
Still  the  most  Supreme 

Sends  you  them  as  prophets, 
Voices  in  a  dream. 


VI 

I  HAVE  found  peace  at  last, 
Not  in  the  desert  wide, 

Nor  on  the  hills  of  dream 
With  Ecstasy  to  bride. 

But  peace  within  your  arms, 
When  all  is  said  and  done, 

When  Beauty's  hands  are  folded 
And  the  race  of  Joy  is  run. 


VII 

FROM  the  most  beloved 

All  things  take  their  worth, 
Sun  and  moon,  and  flowers 

In  the  fields   of  earth, 


125 

The  morning  and  the  evening, 

And  the  starry  way; 
That  they  both  may  have  her 

Night  gives  place  to  day. 

She  is  all  the  freshness 

That  makes  the  morning  young, 
She,  herself,  the  poem  is 

That  back  to  her  is  sung, 

She,  herself,  the  bounty 

That  dies  for  her  and  lives: 
She  is  the  beloved, 

She,  the  love  that  gives ! 


VIII 

As  a  fallen  angel,  banished 

From  some  paradise,  might  yearn 

For  return,  ah,  most  beloved, 
To  yourself  I  seek  return ! 

To  the  woman's  heart  forever, 
Where  we  all  at  first  had  rest, 

Love  leads  back  the  soul  forever 
Through  the  most  beloved  breast. 


UN 

IX 

LIKS  a  forest  is  your  being, 
Virginal,  and  vast  within, 

Through  the  secrets  of  her  shadow 
Difficult  it  is  to  win. 

To  the  inmost  core  of  silence, 

Beautiful  and  undented. 
Inarticulate  with  mystery, 

Most  elusire,  shy,  and  wild. 

To  the  stranger  on  her  borders 
The  deep  hush  by  night  and  day 

Is  a  terror  to  repel  him; 

But  who  once  has  found  the  way, 

Wholly  of  all  else  forgetful 
In  the  arches  of  her  knre, 

Only  hears  the  great  winds  moaning 
Erer  through  the  houghs  above. 


As  natural  as  breathing 
It  is  to  love  you,  sweet, 

Familiar  as  tike  morning, 
Or  tike  flowers  at  our  feet 


127 

0  a*  the  air,  forever 
Drawn  in  and  oat  with  pain, 

1  let  you  go  forever 

To  take  you  back  again! 


XI 

WHEK  for  the  last  time  at  jour  breast 

My  heart  has  lain, 
When  the  days  of  the  great  delight  are  orer, 

The  days  of  pain, 

When  the  old  rapture,  like  the  Spring, 

For  the  last  time 
Has  left  as,  the  wild  will  and  wanton  joy 

Of  hearts  that  rhyme; 

Ah  though  no  more,  as  in  nights  before 

With  the  stars  above, 
Our  hearts  may  meet  with  the  old  beat 

Of  life  and  love, 


I  will  torn  to  yon,  as  the  long  light  that 

From  the  sunset  with  a  sigh! 
O  most  beloved,  as  the  long  light  that  tarns 

Homeward,  before  he  die! 


128 

XII 

THE  lips  you  lean  to  in  loving, 
And  the  heart  you  bend  above, 

Are  but  as  symbols  sent  you 
Of  the  eternal  Love. 

XIII 

O  WHEN  at  last  in  the  silence, 
Breathless,  and  face  to  face, 

When  our  two  pulses  kindle 
Along  the  fiery  race 

Fear,  ignorance,  and  sorrow 
Fall  like  a  veil  away; 

Again  life's  infinite  kindness 
Dawns  on  me  like  the  day ! 

Glorious,  actual,  holy, 

Of  all  mean  fears  bereaved, 

And  simple  as  the  sunlight — 
But  hard  to  be  believed ! 

XIV 

STILL  the  most  beloved 

Comes  from  the  Unknown 

With  a  higher  message 
Than  herself  alone. 


129 
From  Beyond  they  sent  her 

To  your  heart,  to  tell 
Something  of  the  secret, 

She,  a  parable. 

In   the   midnight   silence 

Of  the  summer  night 
When  the  world  is  sleeping 

And  the  stars  are  bright, 

For  a  little  hour 

At  your  heart  alone 
She  repeats  the  message — 

Greets  you,  and  is  gone. 


XV 

EVER  again  we  turn, 

Like  banished  men  and  banned, 
Back  to  the  land  of  love — 

Back   to   the   mother   land. 


XVI 

To  live,  to  breathe,  to  love, 
Is  a  miracle  strange  and  good, 

Familiar  as  the  sunlight, 
But  not  to  be  understood. 


130 

I  cannot  understand  it, 

Though   I   touch   your   hand, 
Though  at  your  heart  I  lie — 
I  cannot  understand. 


XVII 

IN  the  moment  of  death,  as  in  a  dream, 
Bow  down  your  heart  upon  me  from  above, 

Your  lips  as  you  used  to  do ; 
That  the  moment  of  death  may  seem 

To  come,  even  as  once  the  moment  of  love, 
From  you,  dear,  at  least  from  you ! 


XVIII 

To  bring  you  the  secret  of  beauty 
The  beloved  comes  from  afar, 

Her  love  falls  into  your  heart 
Like  the  light  of  the  evening-star. 

More  than  herself  she  brings  you, 
— A  symbol,  a  breath  from  beyond, 

A  message  heard  of  the  secret 

That  broods  in  the  most  Profound. 


131 

O  in  the  night,  in  the  night, 

Lying  without  a  word 
Heart  against  silent  heart, 

How  many  a  time  is  it  heard ! 


XIX 

MANIFOLD  is  my  love 
Beyond  all  other  souls, 

The  immortal  flame  she  wakes, 
The  weariness  controls; 

Like  Music  she  arouses, 
Like  Silence  she  consoles. 


XX 

IN  the  self  beloved 

Song  and  speech  at  last 

Close  with  tired  longing, 
All  their  sorrows  passed. 

Weariness  seraphic 
Of  supreme  release 

Folds  them  into  silence 
And  eternal  peace. 


132 

Gained  the  utmost  harbor 

And  the  farthest  goal, 
Life  and  death  and  duty 

Dawn  upon  the  soul, 

As  on  seas  at  sunset, 

Stormed  from  shore  to  shore, 

The  effortless,  high  Beauties 
Rise  forevermore. 


IX 

TALISMANS:  SECRETS  AND 
DELIVERANCES 


"/  am  a  kind  of  parrot — what  the  Eternal  says,  I, 
stammering,  say  again." 


135 


LIFE  burns  us  up  like  fire 
And  Song  goes  up  in  flame. 

The  body  returns  in  ashes 
To  the  ashes  whence  it  came. 

Out  of  things  it  rises, 

And  laughs,  and  loves,  and  sings; 
Backward  it  subsides 

Into  the  char  of  things. 

Yet  soars  a  voice  above  it — 
Love  is  holy  and  strong — 

The  best  of  us  forever 

Escapes  in  Love  and  Song! 


II 

DAY  with  stormy  love  assails  the  heart  of  the  Night, 
So  the  loving  heart  storms  the  beloved  heart; 

But  at  dusk  he  surrenders  patiently  all  his  pain, 
So  to  the  loved  one  at  last  love  gives  his  longing 
away. 


136 

III 

WHY  do  I  lift  my  voice 

Drunken  as  though  with  wine? 

Because   I   have  discovered 
That  everything  is  divine. 

What  we  seek,  we  find — 
Seem  it  or  near,  or  far: 

Because  I  have  discovered 
That  what  we  seek,  we  are. 

Joy  and  Beauty  and  Love 
Never  the  heart  may  fly, 

Whether  it  would,  or  no, 
Whether  it  live,  or  die. 

Though  Beauty  I  follow  all  day, 
Vainly,  in  fugitive  gleams ; 

Relaxed  at  night  and  at  rest, 
I  sink  to  Beauty  in  dreams. 

Though  seeking  Love  we  lose  it 
And  inwardly  wound  the  breast ; 

Defeated  at  last  and  dumb 

On  the  bosom  of  Love  we  rest. 

The  high,  the  effortless  Beauties 
Are  over  us  and  beneath, 

We  rise  to  them  through  life, 
Or  sink  to  them  through  death. 


137 
IV 

Now  the  immortal  peacock 

Above  our  dreaming  heads 
The  star-eyed,  veering  train 

Of  sumptuous  darkness  spreads. 

Now  a  foamed  wake  in  heaven 

The   sun's   keel  leaves   behind 
Of  stars,  and  phosphorous  splendors, 

And  memories  in  the  mind. 


WHAT  birth  with  slow  labor 
Makes  way  in  the  breast 

Of  the  ominous  sunset, 
The  wrath  of  the  west! 

On  the  borders  of  twilight, 
The  cloud-wrack  afar, 

Black  hangs  the  storm; 
Breathless,  a  star 

Released  slips  aloft: 

O  a  soul  through  the  veil 
Newly  passed,  a  new  soul— 

Hail!— Hail! 


138 

VI 

THE  insolent  lips  of  the  East, 
Luxuriant  and  proud, 

Leaned  over  the  shroud  of  Song — 
Song  arose  from  his  shroud, 

Lured  by  the  lithe  and  laughing 
Sweet  mouth  that  o'er  him  bent, 

The  insolent  and  seductive 
Lips  of  the  Orient. 


VII 

SUNRISE  cries  out  to  Day  and  Morning  murmurs  to 

Noon, 

"O  to  be  wearied  out  at  the  beloved  lips !" 
"Blessed  from  her  is  the  pain,  and  the  weariness  from 

her 

Dearer  than  all   glad  things,"   Twilight  whispers 
to  Night. 


VIII 

THE  beloved  about  herself 
Creates  new  loveliness, 

Her  being  overflows 

Into  beauty  for  sheer  excess. 


139 
As   a  flower  her  delicate  perfume, 

Her  loveliness  sets  free 
All  loveliness  around  her 

Through  the  gates  of  ecstasy. 

Song  and  life  and  courage, 

And  all  glad  things  that  are, 
Kindle  about  her  beauty, 

As  the  light  about  a  star. 


IX 

ALL  your  love  is  a  prophet 
Of  what  you  yet  shall  be, 

A  hint  to  your  spirit,  a  summons 
Out  of  Eternity. 


"WHERE  is  the  heart  of  hell? 

What  is  heaven,  and  where?' 
He  who  loves  in  hell 

Already  heaven  is  there. 

"Yet  God  I  cannot  love ! 

Weak  are  the  eyes  and  dim- 
Love  whatever  you  will 

And  you  are  loving  Him. 


140 

XI 

As  a  pool  repeats  in  shadow 

The  bright  shapes  upon  the  shore 

For  sheer  love,  as  rhyme  forever 

The   sweet  rhyme  that  went  before; 


As  a  mother  in  her  children 
Memories  of  her  lover's  face 

Echoes,  for  sheer  love, — the  beauty, 
Mingled,  of  their  first  embrace; 

Look,  and  in  my  song  reflected 

See  yourself  forevermore, 
In  my  soul's  first  child  the  traces 

Of  the  life  your  beauty  bore ! 


XII 

WHEREVER  the  spirit  moves, 

Or  sorrowful,  or  strong, 
Through  the  cycles  of  life  and  death, 

The  myriad  years  along, 
A  foaming  wake  she  leaves 

Behind  her  of  bright  Song. 


141 
XIII 

LONGING  is  beauty  unattained, 

Beauty  that  strains  and  strives  to  be, 

Slowly  she  climbs  through  starry  pain 
To  Beauty's  calm  serenity. 

The  lover  through  the  beloved  self, 

The  flower  that  bursts  toward  the  light  above, 
Toward  Beauty  through  dim  sorrow  grope, 

Through  loving,  and  the  ways  of  love. 

Carven  in  stone,  or  veiled  in  sound, 

The  one  deep  longing  of  the  soul, 
Or  flowering  slowly  into  speech, 

Moves  ever  upward  toward  one  goal. 

There  where  all  love  is  laid  at  rest, 

There  where  all  songs  and  ardors  cease, 

Longing  is  lost  in  the  beloved, 

And  beauty's  thirst  in  Beauty's  peace. 


XIV 

LIFE  banishes  me  from  Beauty 
A  little  here  beneath, 

A  little,  but  not  long: 
I  return  through  Love, 


142 

I  return  through  Death, 
Backward  with  each  breath 
I  return  through  Song. 


XV 

Two  splendors  are  there  the  meanest  soul 
May  never  escape,  or  love,  or  loth — 

Love  that  is  holy  and  Death  that  is  holy: 
Thank  God  on  your  knees  for  both. 

The  beauties  supreme  are  inevitable; 

Not  Death  may  you  fly  on  the  farthest  star, 
Nor  Love,  though  you  wander  the  universe, 

World  by  dim  world,  afar. 


XVI 

DARKNESS  that  dies  that  Day  may  live,  and  Daylight 
that  slowly, 

Tenderly,  dies  away  at  the  dear  touch  of  Dusk, 
Lovers  insatiable,  each  at  the  breast  of  the  other 

Ever  again  is  slain,  ever  again  reborn. 


143 
XVII 

As  far  as  heaven  from  earth, 

As   far  as   the   east  from  the  west, 

So  far  is  the  breast  that  loves 
From   the   beloved   breast. 

For  to  be  loved  is  well, 

But  blessed  it  is  to  love; 
Earth  it  is  that  receives, 

Heaven  showers  it  from  above. 


XVIII 

IN  the  universe  about  us, 

Around  us  on  each  side, 
Into  Beauty  we  step, 

Whichever  way  we  stride. 

At  the  extreme  of  sorrow 

Brood  her  ecstasies, 
And  at  the  heart  of  rapture 

The  thrilling  sorrow  lies. 

Whatever  direction  you  follow, 

Pursued  to  the  end,  at  last 
To  the  marge  you  come  of  the  boundless 

Encircling  Beauty  and  vast. 


144 

Through  love,  or  wine,  or  music, 

Flung  wide  for  a  flash  the  door, 
By  the  ecstasy  you  are  blinded 
That  is  'round  you  evermore. 

It  is  in  you  and  about  you, 
Dig  downwards,  or  ascend, 

Before  you  at  the  beginning, 
And  after  you  at  the  end. 


XIX 

LOVE,  like  an  aura,  clings  about  the  beloved, 
Love,  like  a  cloud,  arises  from  the  beloved, 

And  sheds  herself  back  on  her  source  in  song, 

Back  on  her   source   in  a   shower  of  singing  rain. 


XX 

DEATH  cleanses  us  from  life 
And  bathes  the  single  soul 

White  of  her  separate  self, 

Drenched  in  the  quickening  Whole. 

Then,  generous  at  last, 

We  lose  ourselves  for  the  sake 

Of  lending  life  to  all — , 
In  others  we  awake. 


145 

And  yet  as  here,  so  there 

In  the  realms  beyond  the  eye, 
In  what  we  have  wholly  loved 

We  live,  and  cannot  die. 

Though   yourself   be   destroyed, 

As  much  as  you  loved  so  much 
Your  self  shall  be  again: — 

Beauty  has  need  of  such. 


XXI 

THE  world  would  prison  us  in :  only  the  heart  beloved, 
Liberal,  glad,  and  well,  opens  the  arms  of  joy. 

XXII 

BEAUTY,  so  old  and  familiar, 
Comes  still  with  a  vast  surprise; 

Strange  seem  ever  the  roses 

And  you  to  the  sight  of  mine  eyes. 

XXIII 

IT  is  ever  Spring  among  the  stars 
That  flower  always  in  soft  heaven, 

Nor  winter  folds  up  with  the  flowers 
The  wide  eyes  of  the  starry  Seven. 


146 

Yet  even  them  the  quiet  hand 

Of  day  folds  up  in  heaven  above; 
But  death,  nor  winter,  night,  nor  day, 

The  strange  and  starry  eyes  of  Love. 


XXIV 

LIVE  your  life  to  the  full, 
The  cup  of  existence  drain 

Deep  to  the  very  dregs, 
Joy  and  sorrow  and  pain ! 

And  shed  your  spirit  freely 

Through  love  and  song  and  deeds,- 
So,  bounteous,  gladly  giving, 

Deathward  the  spirit  bleeds. 


XXV 

WHEN  the  primitive  bounty 

And  kindness  enfold  it, 
When  the  lips  of  Love  touch, 

And  the  arms  of  Love  hold  it, 
The  soul  knows  at  last 

What  the  ages  have  told  it. 


147 
XXVI 


MAN'S  desire  for  Beauty, 

The   beautiful   body   and   face, 

Is  the  longing  of  Life  to  be  born 
Again  from  some  beautiful  place. 

Beauty  is  vital  and  holy, 
By  secret  and  steady  laws 

Unto  herself  the  future 

Life  of  the  world  she  draws. 

The  eternal  and  uncreated 
Progressive  Vigors   to-be 

Cluster  about  her  being 

To  quicken  and  set  them  free. 

And  therefore  the  challenge  of  Love 

Is  incontrovertible  still, 
Who  bears  in  her  rhythmical  body 

The  forward  and  vigorous  will. 


XXVII 

"THE  light  is  so  beautiful  let  her  go  naked,"  said  God. 

But  the  earth  in  terror  bound  her, 
And,  afraid  of  her  naked  loveliness,  the  robe 

Of  colors  laid  around  her. 


148 

XXVIII 

LOVE  and  Beauty  encompass  you 

'Round  about  forevermore, 
Life  is  but  their  dwelling-place, 

And  death  to  them  is  but  the  door. 

Nor  can  you  escape  them  though  you  would, 
Yea — be  your  spirit  ever  so  fleet, 

Though  through  the  darkest  door  she  run, 
More  swiftly  after  follow  the  feet. 

Though  from  Love  you  turn  away, 

To  the  ends  of  the  earth  will  follow  Love, 

Though  from  Beauty  you  hide  your  eyes, 
She  bends  to  lift  you  from  above. 

Just,  or  unjust,  to  them  you  sink 
At  night  in  dreams  upon  your  bed, 

Over  you  with  the  stars  they  rise, 

And  reach  beneath  you  where  you  tread. 


XXIX 

THINK  you  that  any  Fire 

Is  lost  with  the  ebbing  flame ! 

To  the  choral,  clustering  Radiance 
It  ebbs,  from  whence  it  came. 


149 
Part  you  are  of  the  Beauty 

No  single  death  may  smother, 
Put  out  in  one  place, 

You   leap   up   in   another. 


XXX 

A  CHILD  is  a  living  love-song, 
The  poem,  ecstatic  and  bright, 

Of  the  rapture  of  man  and  woman, 
The  memory  of  their  delight: 

The  voice  of  their  blended  longing, 
In  his  loveliness  laid  at  rest, 

Made  one  at  last  in  his  bosom, 

And  slain  in  the  peace  of  his  breast. 


XXXI 

WHENEVER  two  lovers  meet 
A  new  star  in  heaven  is  lit — 

Heaven  is  the  banner  of  love, 
And  night  the  memory  of  it. 

The  joyous  embrace  of  love 

Calls  a  new  soul  from  its  sphere; 
At  the  music  of  two  hearts  beating 

God  leans  down  to  hear. 


150 

XXXII 

You  must  find  an  angel 
To  enter  Paradise: 

Heaven  is  only  seen 
Through  another's  eyes. 

'Tis  another  bosom 

Holds  the  key  thereof. 

Through  the  hearts  that  love  us 
Alone  we  enter  Love. 


XXXIII 

THOUGH  the  source  of  life  and  the  secret 
Be  found  at  last  at  her  lips, 

Not  wholly  the  star  of  longing 
The  beloved  brows  eclipse. 

Even  against  her  bosom, 

Even  at  the  heart  most  dear, 

There  cries  a  voice  in  the  midnight, 
"Beyond — ,  it  is  not  here !" 

O  the  veil  that  sunders  spirits, 
The  secret  not  to  be  known ! 

Lonely   at  her  breast, 
Even  in  the  end  alone, 


151 

Breast  to  breast  to  the  stars, 

Breast  to  breast  in  the  dawn, 
Baffled  returns  the  soul 

Into  herself  withdrawn. 


XXXIV 

LIQUID  is  the  west, 

Cold,  crossed  with  cloudy  veins, 
Widened,  lucid  with  light — , 

Where  the  clear  sunset  wanes. 

So,  too,  the  spirit  widens 

When  the  long  day  makes  end 

Of  love;  a  myriad  stars 
And  memories  reascend. 


XXXV 

"SWEET,  I  love  you,"  the  Dawn  cries  to  the  heart  of 

Dusk. 
Noon  with,  "I  love  you,  I  love  you,"  kisses  Morning 

away. 

Wearily  Dusk  to  Darkness  whispers,  "I  love,  I  love," 
Till  with  a  cry,  "O,  I  love  you!"  Twilight  flows 
into  Night. 


152 

XXXVI 

PRESS  through  joy  and  pain, 
Press  with  every  breath 

To  new  forms  beyond. 

Press  through  life  and  death ! 

Onward,  ever  on, 

New    life,    new    love    to    find — 
Perish,   and   become, 

And  leave  the  corpse  behind ! 

XXXVII 

BEAUTY  alone  of  all 

Is  effortless,  free  from  toil, 

If  starry  she  rise  in  heaven, 
Or  flowering  from  the  soil. 

No  labor  of  yours  may  attain  her, 

Be  it  so  dutiful; 
Trusting  to  the  Spring, 

The  roses  are  beautiful. 

XXXVIII 

ALL  things  make  way  for  the  soul 
To  clear  her  flight  through  the  Vast, 

And  fall  from  her  naked  joy, — 
Even  the  body  at  last. 


153 
XXXIX 

PAST  wood  and  waste  and  valley, 

Over  mountain  and  wave, 
Song  returns  to  your  breast, 

His  cradle  and  his  grave. 

Run  the  completed  circuit, 

The  orbit  of  Beauty  run, 
Fulfilled  the  perfect  circle 

Through  the  many  back  to  one, 

To  his  sunset  in  your  bosom 

Backward  his  voices  throng, 
To  the  wellhead  of  all  Beauty, 

The  sunrise  of  all  Song. 

XL 

EVEN  as  Day  to  Sunrise,  even  as  Dusk  to  Darkness 
Runs  to  kiss  it  with  love  and  jubilation  of  joy, 

Sweet,  at  the  touch  of  your  lips,  vehemently  affirming 
So  my  love  to  your  love  runs,  answering  "Yes !" 

XLI 

IN  the  west  of  the  heaven's  rim 
The  sunset  flowers  bright — , 

The  reflection  of  all  men's  love 
Makes  there  a  glowing  light. 


154 

O  Life  and  Death  are  joyous! 

Life  and  Death  are  high ! 
Let  me  love  and  live — , 

Let  me  love  and  die: 

But  to  new  service  of  you, 
New  love  in  the  worlds  afar, 

Death  sets  free  the  soul, 
As  dusk  the  evening-star. 


X 

LOCKS  OF  THE  WORD-BRIDE 


"No  one  has  unveiled  thoughts  like  Hafiz,  since  the 
locks  of  the  Word-bride  were  first  curled." 

HAFIZ. 


157 


MY  soul  released  from  my  body 
And  the  panic  of  things  that  are, 

In  my  song,  my  very  spirit, 
Mounts  heavenward  like  a  star. 


II 


BECAUSE  in  the  hour  of  the  morning-star 

I  needs  must  lie  awake, 
I  take  the  hour  of  the  morning-star 

To  sing  in,   for  her  sake. 

Then,  when  the  brows  of  the  dawn  are  pale 
And  the  mouth  of  the  morning  meek, 

The  young  day-star  hangs  sweetly  there, 
Like  the  mole  upon  her  cheek. 

In  the  half-light,  'twixt  night  and  light, 
These  dreams  of  her   I  make, 

Ere  all  the  heaven  of  all  the  light 
Kiss  all  my  love  awake. 


158 

III 

OF  one  attire  about  the  Bride, 
The  white,  veiled  Bride  of  Song, 

Sweet  rhymes  come  clustering  side  by  side, 
Like  virgins  in  a  throng. 


IV 

SONG  but  catches  in  glimpses 

What   fain   she   would   understand — 
A  wink  of  the  eyelids  of  Beauty, 

A  flash  of  the  wave  of  her  hand. 


V 

YOUR  soul  was  like  a  big  and  heavy  cloud, 
Radiant  with  lightnings  of  extreme  delight, 

That  died  to  shed  itself  on  us  in  song, 

Falling  like  healing  rain  from  heaven's  height. 

Your  soul  was  like  a  big  and  brimming  cloud, 

Radiant  with  lightnings,  dark  with  unshed  showers, 

That  died  to  shed  itself  in  healing  song, 

Soft  as  soft  rain,  upon  love's  fading  flowers. 


159 

Out  of  the  cloud  of  your  strength  you  shed  your  song 
With  lifted  lightnings  of  extreme  delight, 

Like  healing  rain  upon  us,  that  at  dusk 

Falls  soft  and  silently  from  heaven's  height. 


VI 

LOVE  is  a  fallen  angel 

That  seeks   to  atone   for  his  wrong, 
And  storm  his  original  heaven, 

Your  heart — ,  in  a  shower  of  song. 


VII 

IN  my  song  my  love  is  prisoned 

As  a  bird  within  a  cage. 
Your  lips  only  may  unlock  him 

From  the  prison  of  the  page. 

If  you  hear  within  his  singing, 
With  your  lips   you  may  unbar 

The  gold  gate  that  shines  between  you, 
As  the  twilight  frees  her  star 

That  the  day  but  reimprisons: 
— He  will  seek  another  cage, 

In  your  heart,  dear,  in  your  breast,  dear, 
Fluttering  upward  from  the  page. 


160 

VIII 

LIKE  a  bridal-chamber  darkened 
In  the  noon-tide  blaze  of  day, 

My  mind,  where  the  white  dreams  mingle, 
Shuts  the  whole  world  away. 

IX 

NOT  with  my  body  shall  I  die, 
But  to  new  fields  withdrawn 

Of  love  and  singing,  lost  I  move 
Beyond  the   fields   of  dawn, 

Beyond  the  borderland  of  twilight, 
Beyond  the  sunset's  breath — 

The  violet  reach  from  heaven  to  heaven, 
In  the  sweet  sea  of  death. 

Look — >from  the  evening's  lucid  forehead, 
The  wide,  clear  wastes  afar, 

I  rise,  I  shine,  I  beam  upon  you, 
Seraphical,  a  star ! 

X 

IN  the  cold,  white  sleep  of  Beauty 
Frozen,  your  thought  must  stand — 

Would  it  escape  Corruption 
And  the  dim  Hunger's  hand. 


161 
XI 

LOOK  in  my  songs  and  you  shall  find  her, 
Though  from  my  lips  a  name  so  dear 

Be  uttered  never,  lost  forever — , 

Lean  with  your  heart,  and  listen  here. 

For  words  too  sweet,  for  speech  too  holy — 

Lean  to  my  song  and  listen  well; 
Here  as  the  heart's  blood  in  the  heart-beat, 

Here  as  the  sea's  self  in  the  shell, 

Though  from  my  loving  vanished,  vanished, 
Deep  in  my  song  it  slumbers,  deep, 

Like  the  one  thought,  all  day  close-guarded, 
Betrayed  by  passionate  lips  in  sleep. 

XII 

My  love  to  me  is  a  parable 

On  earth,  of  heavenly  things — 

And  unto  her  in  parables 

My  mouth  in  the  morning  sings. 

XIII 

As  a  chemist,  by  the  inward 

Motion  of  some  thought's  endeavor, 

Frees  the  outer  force  that  carries 
All  men  on  with  it  forever; 


162 

In  your  song  set  free  some  secret 

Of  the  soul,  whose  liberation 
Shoots  wide  rays  of  love  around  it, 

Vibrant  through  the  whole  Creation. 

In  a  single  word  dynamic 

Lurks  more  strength  than  all  earth's  horses 
Lashed,  to  bear  all  men  together 

On  to  the  eternal  Sources. 


XIV 

To  the  source  of  all  singing 
My  memories  throng, 

My  lips  to  your  lips 
To  fetch  a  new  song. 


XV 

IF  too  freely  of  Love 

Free   songs    I   have   sung  you   say- 
Will  you  contemn  it  a  fault 

And  turn  your  face  away? 

Will  you  contemn  it  a  fault 
And  hold  the  singing  a  sin? 

Not  as  I  would  I  sang, 
But  as  the  Angel  within. 


163 
Holy  is  he,  but  words 

Are  weak   for  his   loveliness: 
Then  the  singer  you  may  reprove, 

But  the  singing  you  cannot  repress. 

But  if  the  Angel  himself 

You  darken  and  despise, 
He  will  stab  you  dead  with  love 

And  the  sweetness  of  his  eyes  ! 


XVI 

LEAN  with  your  spirit,  and  listen 
To  my  spirit  here  moving  along — , 

The  forward  step  of  her  rapture 
In  the  stride  of  ecstatical  Song! 


XVII 

AH  beloved,  the  songs  that  flourished 

Flowerlike,    when    plucked    and    pressed 

Close  against  your  breathing  bosom, 
Faint,  and  perish  like  the  rest. 

Though  your  tears  of  tender  pity 

Fall  upon  them  like  the  dew, 
At  the  source  of  love  Love  trembles, 

Fainting  like  the  flowers,  too. 


164 

XVIII 

ON  the  dim  border-lands  of  speech 
And  silence  melting  each  in  each 

Life  sinks   with   shuddering  breath — 

O 

Already  about  the  heart  there  steals 
The  inarticulacy  that  seals 
The  hush  of  love  and  death. 

In  the  rapture  of  Beauty  beyond  reach, 
The  immortal  silence  beyond  speech, 

Song,  at  the  burning  core 
Of  the  heart  of  Love  where  love  is  dumb, 
At  the  source  of  Song  where  no  songs  come, 

Closes  forevermore. 


XIX 

ON  the  last  marge  of  Love's  advance 
In  this  song  I  dance  a  dance ! 

Fulfilled  of  the  last  ecstasy, 
Love  at  last  has  set  me  free. 

Love  lures  me  on  along  the  wind, 
Life  and  death  I  leave  behind. 

I  press  into  the  core  of  things 
Beyond  the  sunset's  folded  wings. 


165 

I  whirl  my  hair  in  the  sunset  cloud. 
I  clap  my  hands !  I  shout  aloud ! 

0  the  last  rapture  baffles  speech, 
It  bears  me  on  beyond  your  reach ! 

1  love  you,  and  I  greet  you  here. 
I  whirl!     I  fade!     I  disappear! 


XX 

O  ALL  sweet  women  the  whole  world  over, 
Listen  and  lean  to  the  songs  I  sing 

Of  the  woman  I  love !     Let  every  lover 
The  whole  world  over  answer  and  sing ! 


XXI 

LET  me  press  into  the  utmost 

Marge  of  mysteries  that  bound  me — 

Make  wide  spaces  clear  for  breathing 
In  the  universe  around  me. 

More  as  knowledge  is  made  way  for, 
Wide  the  way  for  light  and  clearer 

Love  and  courage  wake  forever 
As   the   Actual   draws   nearer. 


166 

As  a  horseman  in  the  midnight 

Phantoms  'tis  we  fear  behind  us ; 
Truth  reveals  forever  beauty — , 
And  the  Actual  shall  unbind  us. 

Till  I  slip  the  robe  of  matter, 
Naked,  buoyant,  up  the  ocean 

Of  clear  beauty  I  am  lifted, 

Without  magic,  without  motion; 

Till  I  float  amid  the  regions 

Of  the  Endless,  till  I  follow 
Upward  with  harmonious  motion 

Through  the  heights  and  heavens  hollow. 

O  the  ecstasy,  the  rapture 

Baffles  speech!     I  float  above  you 

Lost;  I  whirl,  I  fade,  I  flicker, 

Showering  back  a  last,  "I  love  you !" 


XXII 

I  SHAKE  my  hair  in  the  wind  of  morning 

For  the  joy  within  me  that  knows  no  bounds, 

I  echo  backward  the  vibrant  beauty 

Wherewith  heaven's  hollow  lute  resounds. 


167 

I  shed  my  song  on  the  feet  of  all  men, 
On  the  feet  of  all  shed  out  like  wine, 

On  the  whole  and  the  hurt  I  shed  my  bounty, 
The  beauty  within  me  that  is  not  mine. 

Turn  not  away  from  my  song,  nor  scorn  me, 
Who  bear  the  secret  that  holds  the  sky 

And  the  stars  together,  but  know  within  me 
There  speaks  another  more  wise  than  I. 

Nor  spurn  me  here  from  your  heart,  to  hate  me ! 

Yet  hate  me  here  if  you  will — not  so 
Myself  you  hate,  but  the  Love  within  me 

That  loves  you,  whether  you  would  or  no. 

Here  love  returns  with  love  to  the  lover, 

And  beauty  unto  the  heart  thereof, 
And  hatred  unto  the  heart  of  the  hater, 

Whether  he  would  or  no,  with  love ! 


OTHER  POEMS 


171 


RETURN  TO  NEW  YORK 

FAR  and  free  o'er  the  lifting  sea,  the  lapsing  wastes 
and  the  waves  that  roam, 

Hour  by  hour  with  sleepless  power  the  keel  has  fur- 
rowed the  soft,  sad  foam ; 

Slowly  now,  with  steadier  prow,  she  steals  through  the 
dim  gray  fog-banks  home. 

Faint  and  far  from  across  the  bar  the  first  lines  burn 
of  the  cloudy  day, 

From  whistle  and  horn  in  the  twilit  morn  low  mur- 
murs are  wafted  across  the  bay. 

The  fleet,  sweet  swing  of  the  sea-bird's  wing  beats 
down  the  darkness  and  dies  away. 

Dawn, — and  lo,  as  the  drifted  snow  that  melts  from 
the  sun  on  a  mountain  height, 

As  the  veils  from  a  bride  that  fall  and  divide,  the  fog- 
veils  sunder  and  leave  in  sight, 

Like  Venice,  dim  on  the  water's  rim,  the  city,  my 
mother,  bared  and  bright. 


172 

In  the  first  hours   her  stately  towers   and  clustered 

summits  show  faint  and  fair: 
Mother,  mother,  to  thee  and  none  other  the  heart  cries 

out  in  the  morning  there! 
Solemnly,  slowly,  the  white  mists  wholly  fade,  and  the 

whole,  sweet  form  lies  bare. 

Hail,   all  hail,  with  the  dawn   for  veil,  the  sea  for 

throne,  and  the  stars  for  crown ! 
Mother,  thy  son,  his  journeying  done,  triumphantly 

here  at  thine  heart  bows  down; 
Love  that  sings,  on  the  sea-wind's  wings  runs  on  to 

greet  thee  his  very  own. 

DUSK 

Now  from  the  sea-deep,  cloudless  rifts  of  blue, 
Like  big,  reproachful  eyes  brimming  with  tears, 

The  liquid  stars  of  heaven  peering  through 
Blink  drowsily  into  the  gulf  of  years. 

Under  the  shimmering  reaches  waste  and  wide 
The  dizzy  soul  reels  dreamingly  along, 

A  somber  breath  blows  through  the  heavy  Void 
Twilight  and  stars  and  drunkenness  of  song. 

Above  the  peacock-colored  twilight's  green, 

Cloud  beyond  cloud,  the  immortal  Beauty  broods 

Amid  the  radiant  rapture  and  serene 
Of  the  ethereal,  starry  solitudes. 


173 
Child;  lift  thy  voice  to  Her,  and  let  thine  heart 

Pour  its  desire  before  Her  shining  throne, 
Where  in  the  holy  heaven  She  sits  apart 

Above  the  dust  and  din  of  worlds  unknown. 

Sing — fill  thy  bosom  with  the  starry  wine, 
Forget  thyself  in  the  huge  self  of  Night; 

So  shall  Her  voice  descending  into  thine 
Make  thee  afraid  of  thine  own  vast  delight. 

Till  thou  art  drunk  with  the  divine  and  deathless 
And  swallowed  up  amid  the  radiant  throng  — 

And  all  the  choirs  of  heaven  within  thee  breathless 
Shall  drown  thee  in  the  depths  of  thine  own  song ! 


SONG 

OUT  of  my  sorrow  I  have  made  this  song, 

To  comfort  whom  it  will : 
She  whom  I  love  answered  my  love  with  hate, 

But  love  she  could  not  kill. 

And  now  I  know,  I  sing  it  ten  times  over; 

Though  to  be  loved  be  well, 
More  gladness  than  looks  down  with  Hate  from  heaven 

Looks  up  with  Love  from  hell ! 


174 

TOLSTOI 

As  water  unto  water  calls  and  cries 

Over  the  wide  wastes  and  the  fields  of  sea, 
As  the  long  lapsing  floors  that  tremulously 

From  land-line  unto  land-line  fall  and  rise, 

So  the  dark  ocean  of  thought's  eternities 
Rolls  round  the  soul,  that  ever  longs  to  see 
Beyond  the  circle  of  flat  Immensity, 

From  star  to  opposite  star  of  the  dumb  skies. 

No  sound  of  horn,  or  gong,  or  whistle  crying 
On  the  untrodden  spaces  sounds  afar, 

Around  all  men  the  immeasurate  waters  roll; 
Yet  there  be  some  who  wind  and  wave  defying, 

Battling  the  brine,  toward  the  new  worlds  that  are 
Jut  forth  like  crags,  the  headlands  of  the  soul. 


TO  THE  VIRGIN 

O  THOU  fairest  of  women,  thou  loveliest  among  earth's 

daughters ! 

Thy  hair  lies  simple  and  low 
Over  thy  sad  brows  and  lowly, 
Thy  mouth  is  pallid  for  pride,  yea,  and  thine  eyes 

are  holy: 

Over  their  shadows  move 
The  wings  of  the  spirit  of  Love, 


175 
As  the  spirit  of  God  first  brooded  over  the  face  of  the 

waters, 

Solemnly,   long   ago. 

O  thou  fairest  of  women,  thou  loveliest  among  earth's 
daughters ! 

PALINGENESIS 

WHEN  the  galley  of  my  soul  went  out  on  the  unknown 

seas 

I  revisited  in  a  dream  all  the  old  things  I  had  known, 
Moving  on  the  moving  waters  that  moved  about  me 

alone 
With  a  motion  other  than  about  the  Orkneys  or  the 

Hebrides, 
With  a  sound  of  the  silence  of  the  moving  seas. 

And  out  of  the  tangle  of  old  loves,  old  dreams,  and 

old  faces, 
And  old  pangs, — out  of  the  earthly  days  that  had 

been, — 

Some  faint  memories  stirred  me  calling  from  within, 
And  the  sound  of  the  rustling  sea  beating  upon  the 

old  places, 
With  a  softly  shifting  sound  over  the  deep  spaces. 

And  the  sound  of  the  moving  of  the  waters  was  un- 
broken by  any  tears, 
Neither  was  there  any  laughter  within  the  Void, 


176 

But  the  cold  heavens  lay  above  me,  starry  and  wide; 
And  I  remembered  the  passionate  eyes  and  arms  of  the 

old  years, 
And  the  fierce  subtlety  of  their  pains  and  their  fears. 


And  I  revisited  the  sunset  islands  that  I  had  lost  at 

birth 
And  the  strange  face  that  had  lured  me  beyond  the 

seas; 
And  when  I   had  seen  I   set  sail  with  a  favoring 

breeze. 
I  turned.     Body  and  spirit  kissed.     I  shouted  with 

mirth, 
"I  am  part  of  thee,  I  am  part  of  thee,  O  earth!" 


RETURN 


'TWAS  May;  a  cock  from  the  warm  hill-side  crowing 
Shattered  the  morning  like  a  crystal  glass, 
A  soft,  wet  wind  bowed  down  the  meadow-grass, 

Bearing  faint  sounds  of  toil  and  distant  lowing, 

When  I,  beside  the  river's  swollen  flowing, 
With  feet   for  two  long  weary  years  alas 
Through  these  dear,  homely  haunts  unwont  to  pass, 

Over  the  lonely  meadow-lands  was  going. 


177 
O    mother-land !     When   once    again    I    trod 

Thy  fields  and  felt  thy  warm  winds  over  me, 
First  strode  I  forward  buoyant  as  a  god, 

Drunken  with  thee  and  passionate  love  of  thee; 
Then  sank  I  down  humiliate  to  the  sod, 

Remembering  all  I  had  been  and  failed  to  be. 


II 

Much  had  I  wasted  many  fated  hours, 

Homesick  and  heavy  homeward  I  returned, 
About  me  all  the  regardless  beauty  burned 

Of  May-time  in  the  blossoms  and  the  bowers; 


The  mother-land  with  all  her  towns  and  towers 
Recked  not  of  me,  nor  greeted  me,  nor  spurned, 
Not  the  compassionate  heart  of  Spring-time  yearned 

Downward  to  me  with  all  her  roots  and  flowers. 


While  silent  in  a  fierce  and  hopeless  mood 
I  hid  my  warm  face  in  the  fallow  earth, 

Regardless  Nature  all  about  me  stood, 

Tremendous  with  her  passion  and  her  birth; 

And  from  the  meadow  and  the  windy  wood 

Came  sounds  of  mating  and  of  singing  mirth. 


178 

TO  THE  DREAMERS 

WHO  from  the  noon-tide  flame  of  living  flies 
To  music  and  to  poetry,  which  are 
Moonlight  reflected  from  the  sun  of  life — 
The  beautiful,  pale  moonlight  that  makes  fair 
All  the  sad  ugliness  and  blaze  of  day ; 
Let  him  take  heed,  lest  in  the  sweet  illusion 
His   will   grow   weak,   and  the   cold   loveliness, 
Sleeping  upon  his  forehead,  make  him  mad. 


EARLY  APRIL 

WITH  memories  and  odors 
The  wind  is  warm  and  mild. 

The  earth  is  like  a  mother 

Where  leaps  the  unborn  child. 

The  grackles  flock  returning 

Like  rain-clouds  from  the  south, 

And  all  the  world  lies  yearning 
Toward  summer,  mouth  to  mouth. 

How  soft  the  hills  and  hazy 
Look  through  the  open  door. 

The  crocus  shines,  a  virgin, 
White  from  the  grassy  floor. 


179 

The  children  whirl  around  in  a  ring 
And  laugh  and  sing,  and  dance  and  sing; 
But  the  blackbird  whistles  clear, 

O  clear, 
"The  spring,  the  spring!" 


DEPARTURE 

Now  your  eyes  are  closed,  your  lips 
Parted  as  in  an  indrawn  breath, 

The  rapture  of  love  upon  your  face 

Has   set  the   triumphant  peace   of  death. 

So  shall  you  lie  at  last  before 

Ever  again  we  two  embrace; 
I  shall  not  look  on  you  again, 

Not  even  in  death  upon  your  face. 

So  shall  you  lie  at  last,  at  last, 
When  I  am  far  away  and  fled — 

One  moment,  and  forever  we  part — , 
Already  I  seem  to  see  you  dead. 

Your  bosom  is  like  a  moonlit  sea, 

So  calm  the  heaving  of  your  breath; 

The  rapture  of  love  upon  your  face 

Has  set  the  triumphant  peace  of  death. 


180 

THE  SAVIORS 

WHEN  from  long  wanderings  in  sensual  joys, 

Satiate,  weary,  we  return,  and  fain, 

How  beam  the  high  beauties  of  eternal  Thought 

To  take  us  back  again ! 

Music  and  Song,  with  sweet  disdain, 

To  the  faithless  and  undeserving, 

Equally  to  the  good  and  the  evil  soul 

Their  regardless  bounties  roll: 

Nor  from  the  most  obscene 

Beethoven    and    Shelley    hold    back    their    splendors, 

unswerving 
From  the  high  goal 

Which  ever  they  move  upwards  toward  serene, 
From  the  pinnacles  beyond  lust 
Showering  their  glad  indifference  on  the  dust. 


O  the  saviors ! 

That  from  the  pang  of  the  flesh 

Set  free  the  soul,  from  the  mesh 

Of  the  ugly  and  the  mean, 

From   the    littleness    of   things    and   low    behaviors; 

How  beautiful  they  are, 

Irresistible  to  be  loved ! 

And  the  vast  heart  of  the  Sensual  how  obscene, 

Cruel,  not  to  be  moved, 

Wounding  the  soul  with  many  a  galling  scar! 


181 

Back  to  the  sacred  rest 

Of  the  Beautiful  we  fly;  O  why  did  we  leave  her! 
Till  lifted  upward  slowly, 
The  beloved  voices  call: 
Pierced  with  her  faithlessness,  like  a  sword  to  cleave 

her, 

With  a  shower  of  blinding  tears  the  soul  awakes, 
And  virgin  after  all 
Sobs  the  soiled  heart,  and  breaks 
With  passionate  sorrow  on  the  terrific  breast. 


Ah,  though  a  thousand  times  we  should  betray  them, 

No  sin  of  ours  may  stay  them, 

Our  saviors,  from  their  love; 

Forward  following  their  feet  we  move: 

The  blinding  light  of  Beauty 

Breaks  dazzling  on  the  soul  but  newly  risen 

Out  of  the  sensual  prison, 

Weak,  faint,  and  worn. 

Love  and  the  infinite  sea  of  Joy  and  Duty 

Opens  before  our  eyes, 

An  ocean  flooding  to  the  eternities, 

Inviolable  and  soundless, 

Fresh   as    the   Springtime,   vigorous   as   the   morn 

And  boundless: 

Never  satiating,  never  cloying,  never 

Weakening  the  soul,  but  still  to  new  endeavor 

Luring  her  onward  out  toward  the  Unknown  forever. 


182 

MID-OCEAN 

— HEAVEN'S   ardent  scope  over  the   midnight  sea 
Bowed  down  with  reverent  stars  from  rim  to  rim, 
Bowed  slowly  down  with  weight  of  solemn  stars 
From  the  crowded  core  to  where  the  last,  low  wave 
Washes  her  flames !     The  while  my  soul  within 
Sits  like  a  star,  the  central  flame  of  All. 


"MOTHER" 

WHEN  at  your  side  a  little  child  looks  up, 

Remembering  whence  it  came, 
Half-baffled  and  not  knowing  what  it  seeks, 

It  whispers  the  old  name. 

Not  yet  it  guesses  the  more  radiant  joy 

Whither  its   forces  roll, 
The  later  rapture  and  more  breathless  bliss 

Of  the  united  soul. 

Yet  homesick,  banished  from  the  sacred  Source, 

Some  little  memory 
Moves  on  its  spirit — some  ecstatic  hint 

Of  the  return  to  be. 

The  man  shall  seek  it  at  another  breast; 

Still  is  the  voice  the  same, — 
Love,  Love — O  with  what  hearts  we  turn, 

Remembering  whence  we  came ! 


183 
SEA-VOYAGE 

IN  the  embrace  of  Dawn,  exuberant,  fierce,  and  free, 
The  vast  and  virgin  Deep  sobs  out  for  sheer  delight. 

Noon  treads  with  ponderous  strides  on  the  Immensity. 
Darkness  from  her  throne  leans  down  the  lips  of 
night 

To  glut  the  sullen  sadness  of  the  immortal  sea. 

And  like  a  mournful  queen,  with  homage  of  the  throng 
All  unappeased,  engirdled  with  jewels  row  on  row, 

She  sways,  sceptered  and  robed,  saluted  with  dim  song, 
Upon  her  rhythmic  throne  sullenly  to  and  fro, 

Cruel  and  discontent,  disconsolate  and  strong. 

Deep  between  the  vistas  of  evening's  twilit  Deep 
The   forehead   of  dim   heaven   with   many   stars   is 

crowned, 
The  headland  of  the  morning  with  cloud  on  cloud  hangs 

steep ; 

The  stately,  somber  waters  flow  silently  around, 
From   morning  into   morning  moving,   from   sleep   to 
sleep. 

From  morning  into  morning,  far  as  the  eye  may  scan, 
The  hungry,  herded  waves  crowd  the  unending  rim. 

Under  the  huge  arch  of  the  infinite  heaven's  span 
The  sea-bird's  weary  flight  beats  down  the  darkness 
dim. 

Somberly  on  the  Waste  cries  out  the  spirit  of  Man. 


184 

Till  the  harbor  entered  and  the  long  peace  begun, 

Quiet  falls  from  heaven  with  the  old  calm  at  last. 
The  silence  flows  away  in  pulses  one  by  one, 

And  the  unmoving  mainland  looms  shadowy  and  vast, 
The   ceaseless    clamor   ended    and   the   long  journey 
done. 

"ALAS,  WHERE  THOU  ART" 

ALAS,  where  thou  art  only  there  is  love, 

And  where  thou  goest  love  with  longing  goes, 

As  moonlight  with  the  moon  in  heaven  above, 
The  perfume  with  the  rose. 

As  murmuring  boughs  unto  the  wind  that  blows, 
And  moonlight  to  the  moon  that  moves  above, 

As  the  sweet  odor  to  the  blowing  rose, 
So  unto  thee  is  love. 

Come  with  thine  eyes  like  stars  in  heaven  above, 
Come  with  thy  face  cool  as  the  wind  that  blows, 

Come  to  me  with  the  perfume  of  sweet  love, 
O  love,  my  moon,  my  rose! 

"MUSIC  IS  HIS  ROBE" 

THE  rhythm  of  the  eternal  silence,  the  voices 
Intangibly  interwoven  together  of  all  things 
Lapsing  and  lifting,  the  oceanic  Beauty 
Whose  silent  waters  fold  forever  flowing 


185 

Our  world  of  tumult,  the  voice  of  encircling  Silence, 
Music,  for  a  fleet  space,  with  ardor  follows, 
With  friction  of  resonant  strife  sonorous  forcing 
From  the  deep  bosom  and  heart  with  holy  fingers 
(That  grasp  into  the  sullen  core  of  Silence) 
Her  rolling  voice;  with  ardor  of  vibrant  friction, 
Till  almost  before  the  soul  it  shine  and  sparkle 
Glistening  hues.     But  the  heart  fails,  the  hand  wearies, 
Backward  ebbs  the  stream  to  the  boundless  ocean, 
And  the  continuous   ecstasy  to  hold  longer 
Baffles  the  soul;  radiance  melts  into  darkness 
Unto  our  eyes,  and  harmony  into  silence 
Unto  our  ears :  but  underneath  is  radiance 
Interminably  proceeding,  underneath  Music, 
Ere  the  first  note  it  was,  and  forever  after 
Proceeds,  when  the  last  note  has  ceased  to  speak  it — , 
Eternal   Music,  whereof  each  audible  portion 
Is  but  as  the  crest  of  a  wave  that  foams  for  a  moment 
Upon  the  bosom  of  the  unbounded  ocean, 
Or  a  remembered  dream  in  a  sleep  enduring. 

'Tis  but  a  visible  spot  on  the  robe  invisible 
Of  intervolvular  harmonies,  choral  colors 
Blended  and  multi-woven,  dyed  deep  in  purple, 
Stained  with  the  night  and  sumptuous  with  profusion 
Of  shadow  and  light — ,  the  very  cloth  and  tissue 
Which  was,  and  is,  and  shall  be  'round  about  us, 
Within  us  and  above  us  and  beneath  us — 
The  breathing  robe  of  Beauty  worn  by  Creation. 


186 

It  is  the  magnificent  garment  of  the  Eternal, 

Which,  somberly  and  with  undulous  motion  trailing, 

Billows   gigantically  behind  his   footstep 

Heard  as  of  thunder,  with  ponderous  stride  and  stately 

Following  as  He  draws  it  sadly  sweeping 

Ever  around  the  dumb,  waste  capes  of  being, — 

With  a  vast  sough  and  whisper  oceanic, 

Withdrawing,  and  withdrawing,  and  withdrawing. 

The  gorgeous  hollow  thereof  is  drenched  with  darkness, 

Tragic  with  twilight,  peacock-colored,  spattered, 

Solemn  with  vast  excesses  of  waste  shadow 

And   mournful   grandeur   of  irridescent  progressions, 

Starriest  tints,  and  cloudy  courts  of  color, 

Intricately  coordinate.     So  veering 

After  the  footfall  of  the  high  Eternal, 

Slow  pacing  with  pomp  of  terrifical  rhythm  forward, 

Moves  the  starred  train  and  canopy  with  a  motion 

Disconsolate,  inconsolable  with  beauty, 

Vastly  disdainful  through  the  Voids  forever. 

THE  ANSWER 

To  all  the  questions  of  the  sages, 

"What  must  we  do  to  live?" — that  cry, 
With  groan  and  travail  of  the  ages 
Creation  makes  but  one  reply: 

"He  that  is  brave  alone  may  live." 
This  answer  all  the  ages  give. 


187 
THE  WINDS  OF  MARCH 

MARCH  is  come  with  the  firstling  of  joyous  days 
All  in  the  strength  of  his  heart,  and  the  snows  are 

sad. 

The  slow,  wet  winds  come  warm  from  the  meadow- 
ways 
Here,  where  the  Spring  is  glad. 

There  was  an  hour  for  murmurs  and  for  replies, 
A  little  hour  for  sweet  love  to  have  his  will, 

A  little  hour  there  was  for  songs  and  sighs; 
But  here  it  is  so  still. 

Ah  that  she  would  but  come  to  me  now  for  a  space, 
Ah  that  she  would  but  come  to  me,  now  I  am  sad, 

With  the  old,  careless  smile  of  her  pale,  pale  face, 
Here,  where  the  Spring  is  glad  ! 

UNREST 

I  BEAR  within  me  all  the  pain  of  earth, 
And  all  the  melancholy  of  her  plains, 
And  all  the  longing  of  her  lonely  hills, 
Sad  songs  and  dreams  that  drift  about  the  world — 

All  these  I  bear,  and  ever  my  own  mind 
And   the   wide  waste   of   uncreated   thought 
Spreads  out  before  me  like  the  universe, 
Dark  and  chaotic,  strewn  with  many  stars. 


188 

"O  MEMORY,  THOSE  EYES" 

O  MEMORY,  those  eyes 
That  shine  so  gravely  sad, 
Across  the  irrevocable  sea  of  things 
Luring  me  home, 

Little  they  may  avail — 
Heart-breaking  and  austere — 
To  lure  my  bark  into  the  sunset  waste 
Of  the  dead  Past! 


That  childhood-music  blown 

Along  the  horizon's  rim, 

Cloud  beyond  cloud  and  wave  on  wave  afar, 

Little  avails. 


Gone,  gone,  forever  gone ! 

O  in  the  blind,  immense 

Universe,    loud    with    warring    worlds,    thy 

voice 
O  Love,  how  frail! 

So  poignant  and  so  dear, 

Lovable  above  all, 

Breaking  the  heart  for  utter  helplessness, 

Breaking  the  heart! 


189 

Yet  even  here  I  feel 

A  cry  fierce  and  divine 

Wrung  from  the  heart  of  man,  a  bitter  cry 

Shaking  the  stars. 

THE  CLOSE  OF  MASS 

THE  holy  candles  fade  and  flare, 

Where  the  slow  priest  with  swaying  tread 

Moves,  and  the  organ  shudders  there 
And  the  dumb  people  bow  the  head: 
The  body  of  Christ  is  dead. 

Through  the  long  aisles  and  vaulted  gloom 
Groans  the  mute  common  heart  of  men, 

Sullen  and  holy  with  its  doom: 
On  every  cross   and  wall  again 
A  Christ  is  crowned  of  men. 

The  jewels  and  the  tiara's  rim 

His  carven  forehead  clasp  and  span, 
But  they  have  cramped  and  humbled  Him 

Into  a  God,  who  was  a  man — , 

The  first  since  Time  began. 

His  hands  hang  bleeding  on  the  wall; 

O  the  white  loin-cloth  streaked  with  red ! 
O  the  pale  body  stripped  and  tall ! 

Yet  though  you  wail  these  words  you  said, 

The  body  of   Christ  is  dead. 


190 

Weep  and  moan,  weep  and  moan, 

Body  and  soul  are  both  of  God. 
Can  you  keep  the  soul  when  the  flesh  is  gone? 

Shall  not  the  body  through  flower  and  clod 

Strive  sunward  through  the  sod! 

O  common  world,  O  world  of  men, 
Have  you  no  answer,  are  you  dumb! 

Who  bore  us   Christ,  and  shall  again 

Bear  us  a  Christ  when  the  time  is  come, — 
Where  is  your  voice,  are  you  dumb ! 

They  crucified   Him  when   He  cried 

And  mocked  Him  standing  underneath; 

Shall  they  tear  the  son  from  the  mother's  side! 
Shall  they  call  Him  God  with  profane  breath ! 
Shall  they  rob  a  man  of  death ! 

They  have  crowned  Him  with  a  fire  of  light, 

With  all  the  heavens  for  His  seat, 
They  have  made  Him  awful  with  might  of  might: 

Where  are  the  man's  eyes  still  and  sweet? 

Where  are  the  tired  feet? 

The  silence  aches,  but  through  the  reeds 

Of  the  organ,  through  choir  and  arches  dim, 

The  echoing  world  grows  loud,  and  pleads 
With  rough,  hard  hands  and  thorny  diadem, 
"Where   is   my   Christ,   what   have   you   done   to 
Him?" 


191 


SING  first,  and  after  break  the  heavy  chain- 
What  once  we  sing  we  afterwards  attain, 

Nor  seek  without  you  for  the  inner  light — 
Within  you  lies  the  fire  and  the  might; 

Rebuild  it  in  yourself  with  fierce  endeavor, 
Build  up  a  refuge  in  yourself  forever ! 

By  the  outer  terrors  baffled,  but  still  glorious, 
Into   herself  the   soul   returns   victorious. 

Baffled  and  wounded  on  the  road  she  trod, 
Up  through  herself  the  soul  returns  to  God. 


BENEDICTION 

THE  wave  of  morning  rolling  o'er  the  world, 
Dawn,  touching  the  lids  of  men  awake, 

Purge  you,  and  pierce  you  daily  with  the  will 
To  live  and  love  and  labor  for  their  sake. 


TO  MARY 

WITH  a  multitudinous  sound  of  strings 

And  a  flame  of  light, 

With  a  clashing  of  spears  and  fierce  unbearable  things 

He  should  have  come  in  His  might, 


192 

With  the  uncrowning  of  many  kings : 
O  watcher  beside  a  manger,  bow  down  thy  face,  cover 
thy  face  in  the  night ! 

There  was  none  with  Him,  there  was  none  like  Him, 

there  was  none  before  Him 
That  was  so  sweet; 
They  shall  mock  Him,  they  shall  crucify  Him,  they 

shall  abhor  Him, 
They  shall  wound  His  feet. 
They  shall  tear  Him  down,  they  shall  call  Him  God, 

they  shall  adore  Him: 

O  mother  beside  a  dead  son,  bow  down  thy  face,  cover 
thy  face  in  His  winding-sheet ! 


IN  THE  NIGHT 

NEW  loves  and  new  faces 
Have  taken  your  place. 

The  years  have  veiled 
The  look  of  your  face. 

They  lure  me  and  draw  me 
Along  the  new  way, 

Glad  faces  and  lovelier, 
Laughing  and  gay. 


193 

Till  twilight  descends 

And  the  faces  depart: 
I  lie  alone 

With   the   ghost   at   my   heart. 

In  the  night,  in  the  night, 

On  my  bosom  I  bear 
The  dear  weary  beauty, 

The  sleepless   despair; 

Here  on  my  heart, 

Here  on  my  breast — . 
O  my  sorrow,  my  own, 

I  love  you  the  best! 


THE  KEYS 

IN  the  wide  hollows  of  the  east  the  light 
And  darkness  are  embracing.     Sound  is  dead. 
No  leaf  is  stirred.     Vast  quietness  is  here, 
The  silence  of  the  bridal-chamber,  the  peace, 
When  all  the  world  is  banished  and  forgot, 
After  long  sorrow,  after  long  disdain, 
In  the  still  mingling  of  two  silent  souls. 

Around  us  lies  the  world  of  love  and  death, 
Of  bridal  joy  in  the  dim-lighted  room 
Weary  of  love,  of  white  and  breathless  sleep 


194 

In  other  chambers  sickened  with  the  air 

Of  flowers  and  one  ever-patient  form 

Triumphing  in  repose — ,  chambers  of  birth 

And  mingling  cries  and  groanings — .     Even  now 

Strange  men  are  weaving  dreams  of  love  or  woe, 

(On  sea- washed  islands  and  strange  lands  afar, 

On  distant  capes  and  headlands  of  the  world), 

Music,  or  song,  or  colored  memories, 

Reflected  moonlight  from  the  sun  of  life; 

And  all  mankind  reechoes  but  one  chord 

Of  love  and  birth  and  death:  while  spirits  grave 

In  lonely  meditation  brood  thereon, 

And  answering  heads  arise  in  every  land, 

Christs  and  Mohammeds,  Buddhas — "names  that  shine. 

But  at  the  core  of  All  lurks  one  old  pain, 

The  world-old  hungering  of  woman  and  man, 

The  inevitable  attraction  old  as  Time 

And  stronger  than  all  ages,  even  now, 

Amid  the  horror  of  huge  cities  set, 

They  meet  and  sink,  dragging  each  other  down, 

'Mid  reeling  sorrows  to  the  dark  abyss. 


O  look  at  me,  we  hold  the  ancient  keys 
Of  love  and  life  and  death,  we  are  the  source 
Of  all  of  these;  since  first  Creation  dawned, 
Since  the  first  morning  of  the  world,  we  two 
Have  longed  to  rush  together  and  crush  out 
The  pain  of  all  within  each  other's  arms ! 


195 
HYMN 

O  GLORIOUS  Splendor  and  seraphic  Might ! 

How  shall  I  praise  Thee,  or  how  worship  Thee! 
High  God  of  dreadful  holiness,  Thy  light 

And   breath  are  on  the  waters  of  the  sea. 

The  brain  of  heaven  with  her  nights  and  days 
And  thunders  is  for  motions  of  Thy  thought, 

Wheeling  along  the  everlasting  ways — 
I  cry  to  Thee,  but  Thou  repliest  not. 

Oft  have  I  covered  Thee  with  bitter  hate 
And  felt  Thy  lash  upon  me  from  above; 

But  anger  fades  before  the  face  of  Fate, 
And  holier  than  to  hate  it  is  to  love. 

And  I  shall  love  Thee  with  my  very  soul, 

Forever,  always,  even  to  the  tomb, 
Yea,  even  though  across  my  body  roll 

The  whirl-wind  of  the  chariot-wheels  of  Doom. 


TWILIGHT  IN  MID-OCEAN 

I  HEARD  the  sailors  sing  at  twilight  on  the  Deep, 
Far    forward    in    the    dusk.     Through  the    dark, 

clouded  dome 
Westward,  a  few,  faint  stars  awoke  like  eyes  from 

sleep, 


196 

And  a  dim  phosphorescence  of  fire  lined  the  foam, 
Driven  along  the  Waste  like  flocks  of  herded  sheep. 

And  ground-swell  upon  ground-swell  echoed  with  tread 
on  tread 

The  sob  all  'round  the  world  of  the  despondent  sea. 
In  the  half-light  I  almost  awaited,  as  in  dread, 

The  monster  of  the  Vast,  old  as  eternity, 
Along  the  implacable  rim  should  lift  a  snaky  head. 

I  thought  of  all  the  ships  that  with  white  sail  un- 
furled 
Across  the  somber  Waste  had  sought  the  immortal 

dream, 

And  the  adventurous  breast  prophetic  of  a  world, — 
Islands    of   promised    peace    beyond   the    morning- 
stream, 

Visions,  before  whose  breath  the  barks   of  old  were 
whirled. 

The  sailors'  voices  sounded  far-off  as  if  in  sleep; 

Along  the  vast  and  scornful  surface  of  the  sea 
A  multitudinous  breath  of  laughter  seemed  to  creep, 

And  like  a  long-drawn  sigh  died  fitfully  away. 
An  oceanic  odor  arose  upon  the  Deep. 

THE  TRUTH 

THOUGH  the  prophets  accept  their  doom  and  the  mar- 
tyrs sigh  for  it, 
It  is  better  to  live  for  the  Truth  than  it  is  to  die  for  it. 


197 
TWO  SAD  SONGS 


As  the  still  lamplight  of  the  street 
At  noon  of  night  I  crossed, 

Afar  I  saw  it  wandering 
And  like  a  little  ghost — 

A  little,  lonely  will-o'-the-wisp, 

Mechanically  gay, 
That   mimicked   some   immortal   thing 

Along  the  somber  way. 

The  ghost  of  some  sad  love  it  seemed 

In  a  forgotten  Spring, 
That  ever  the  old  gestures  made 

As  it  went  wandering. 

The  secret  of  the  old,  lost  joy 
Still  haunted  it  and  stirred, 

Repeating  yet  to  every  face 
The  old,  familiar  word; 

And  the  kind  loveliness,  that  once 
Had  bowed  to  grant  such  grace, 

Now  the  immortal  bounty  begged 
From  every  passing  face. 


198 

Nearer  it  hurried,  as  in  quest 

Of  some  obsessive  goal 
Beyond  it  ever,  or  as  if 

In  search  of  its  own  soul, 

And  nearer  drew — until  the  eyes 
Begged  up  to  mine,  and  moved 

By  me — and  O  it  once  had  been 
Somebody's  best  beloved! 


ii 

Where  is  he,  the  cheated  one, 

That  the  world  has  robbed  of  you, 

His  beloved  ere  he  came, 

And  the  love  he  never  knew! 

The  dear  secret  of  your  breast 
Meant  for  him  and  him  alone, 

All   that  tender  loveliness 
Plundered  now  of  everyone! 

In  the  desert  of  the  world 

His  sweet  spring  of  life  is  sealed, 

And  the  bosom  meant  for  his, 

And  the  breast  that  might  have  healed. 


199 

Glimpses  of  your  girlhood's  self, 

Beautiful  and  fugitive, 
Show  us  what  consoling  grace 

Once  your  beauty  had  to  give. 

Dear,  each   gesture,   each  caress, 

Ways  of  loving,  every  whim 
Of  wild  pity,  every  kiss, 

Meant  for  him  and  only  him ! 

Still  about  your  presence  clings, 

Wistful,  sorrowful,  and  wise, 
Ever  that  reproachful  ghost — 

And  the  haunting  of  his  eyes. 


TRIO 

DEATH.     Now  ebbs  the  twilight  from  the  melting  land, 

The  tremulous  light  runs  low 
Along  the  rim  of  the  world.     Give  me  your  hand. 

Come,  for  it  must  be  so. 

LIFE.     Weary  I  am, 

Yet  let  me  still  abide 
A  little  while 

Here,  in  the  eventide. 

LOVE  [wnseen]  O  sweet,  on  my  breast 
Come  once  again 


200 

Here,  as  of  old ! 
Sweet  is  the  pain. 

O  come  as  of  old ! 
Sweet  is  the  rest — 

DEATH.  No  more. 

Eternal   darkness   covers   up   the   west. 
Come  to  me  as  before, 
Ere  into  tumult  and  distraction's  pit 
Your  wandering  feet  were  sent 
Out  of  the  quiet  door; 
Ere  you  were  sent  out  of  the  mother-breast. 

LOVE,      [nearer]   I  give  you  my  lips,  t 

Here  at  my  side 
Abide,  abide, 
Here  at  my  lips ! 

At  the  breast  that  bore  you, 

Though  born  unto  pain! 
Love  and  forgive ! 

Love  leans  above  you — 
Give  life  and  live 

Once,  once  again ! 
O  I  love  you,  I  love  you! 

LIFE.     I  am  fain 

But  mine  eyes  darken — 
Whither—? 


201 

DEATH.     Nay,  turn  to  me  who  am  the  rest, 
Nor   heed   the   siren   voice   that   singing   lures, 
Give  heed,  nor  hearken. 
Only  in  me  the  immortal  peace  endures. 

LOVE  [still  nearer]  I  am  the  sunrise, 
I  am  the  light. 
Death  is  the  night. 
Drink  of  mine  eyes! 
Turn  to  the  light! 
Though  you  be  weary, 
Wearier  yet 

You  shall  grow,  nor  regret; 
Here  on  my  bosom 

Reborn,  rearise 
To  new  life  and  new  living. 
Sweet  is  the  pain, 
Sweet  to  be  slain 
In  the  old  way  again, 
Living  and  giving — 
Can  you  forget ! 

LIFE.     O  Love — 

LOVE  [very  near]      Warm  are  my  lips 

And  fresh  for  your  tasting, 
Cold  is  your  body 

And  shadow-wards  hasting. 
Why  will  you  turn  thus 


202 

From  all  you  desired ! 
Can  you  not  love  me! 
Sweet,   are  you  tired? 

Then  though  to  come  to  me 

You  be  too  weary, 
You  will  I  draw  to  me 

Though  you  be  weary ! 
Here  at  the  heart-side 

Clasp  and  en-arm  you, 
With  my  own  body 

Kindle  and  warm  you, 
O  my  own  banished  one 

Here,  till  again 
Clean  from  my  clasping, 
Vigorous,  nourished, 

Strong,  you  may  drink  again 

Ecstasy's  pain ! 

You  shall,  you  shall ! 
Though  you  had  perished, 

Fresh  from  my  lips  you  should  drink  it 


again 


LIFE    [turning  fiercely  about].     O  the  pain 
Lying  against  your  breast! 
O  let  me  catch  you  to  my  side  again 
Here,  nor  have  ever  rest! 
Here  at  the  heart-side  wear  you, 
Love  you  and  bear  you, 


203 

Weariless  spending 
Joy  never-ending 

At  the  dear  bosom — 

DEATH    [advancing]      Nay,  'tis  passed  forever. 
Come,  for  the  twilight  covers  up  the  west. 

LIFE     [hesitates    and    goes    to    Death — Darkness] 

Forever  ? 

What  silence  seems  to  darken  o'er  the  land ! 
How  may  I  bear  it ! 

Let  me  upon  your  bosom  lean  a  little, 
Give  me  your  hand. 

LOVE  [the  voice  recedes]      Sweet,  are  you  weary? 

CHORUS   OF    DESTINIES.     Faint   on   the   irrevocable 

breast 

Lean,  on  the  somber  bosom  that  cannot  understand. 
Sleep,  and  have  rest. 

LOVE   [from  afar]      I  am  the  sunrise, 
I  am  the  light, 
Death   is   the  night 
Till  the  new  dawn  rise. 
Though  you  have  left  me, 
Love  will  not  leave  you; 
Love  will  receive  you, 


204 

Love  will  retrieve  you 
In  the  new  sunrise ! 

Sleep,  and  have  rest. 


REBELLION 

BEYOND  the  sea  lies  another,  and  yet  beyond, 
I  know  the  sea  is  not  bound  by  a  measured  space, 

I  will  reach  out  my  arms  over  the  sea, 

I  will  run,  I  will  run,  till  I  come  to  the  perfect  place. 

When  I  hear  a  dancing  on  the  dim  sands  beyond  the 

moon, 
And  the  fawning  waves  cry  out,  I  grow  fierce  and 

wild — 

I  remember  something  I  have  lost  shining  and  strange, 
And  beat  against  the  patient  gods  like  a  little  child. 


WOMAN,  THE  MYSTICAL 

WHERE  is  She  and  who  is  She 

Whom  across  the  wavering  world 
Like  a  beacon-light  I  see? 

In  the  words  that  shine  and  move 

Down  some  poet's  woven  page 
I  have  felt  Her  hate  and  love. 


205 
When  the  vampire  in  the  night 

Wets  her  lips  with  sleepy  blood, 
On  Her  lips  the  blood  is  bright. 

The  cold  angel  at  God's  throne, 

Blowing  trumps  of  molten  gold, 
Speaks  of  Her  and  Her  alone. 

The  poor  harlot  in  the  street 

When   the   gaudy   arc-lights   flare — 
There  Her  pulses  burn  and  beat. 

Turning  vile  things  to  the  Human, 

To  the  Human,  the  Divine — 
Angel,  anti-Christ,  and  Woman ! 


AUTUMN 

LET  the  tired  sea  go  down  with  a  hurt  sound, 

It  cannot  reach  us  here  where  the  gray  dunes  are 

still; 
The  cold  wind  sweeps  the  bushes  on  the  hill, 

The  white  sand  whirls  across  the  barren  ground, 
And  the  sea  moans  as  in  my  childhood. 

When  the  wind  is  on  the  dunes  where  the  long  dunes 

roll 

Seaward,  the  old  summers  come  back  to  me  in  song, 
I  have  seen  these  reaches  and  sandy  ways  so  long 


206 

They  are  almost  grown  a  part  of  the  breathing  of  my 

soul: 
And  the  sea  moans  as  in  my  childhood. 

I  love  to  sit  and  watch  you  when  the  sea  is  sad, 
And  when  you  look  and  smile  the  mother  smiles 

in  you, 
But  when  you  turn  with  love  it  is  something  strange 

and  new, 

Tired  and  wonderful,  that  almost  makes  me  glad ; 
And  the  sea  moans  as  in  my  childhood. 

THE  WIND  OF  TIME 

THE  winds  blow  out  of  the  stars  and  trample  and 

pass, 

The  night  grows  black  and  silent  deep  in  my  heart, 
Here  where  I  roam  between  the  stars  and  the  grass. 

O  piteous  love,  the  years  have  conquered,  alas ! 

The  winds  rise  up  and  blow  you  out  of  my  heart. 
The  winds  blow  out  of  the  stars  and  trample  and  pass. 

THE  BORDERLANDS 

IN  extreme  sorrow,  on  the  border-lands  of  death 
(As  extreme  joy,  on  the  border-lands  of  death), 
On  the  utter  marge  of  being  and  end  of  all, 
At  the  last  pang — there  lurks  an  ecstasy. 


207 

An  abandoned  beauty  so  thrilling,  fierce,  and  sheer, 
So  regal  is  her   splendor  and   gorgeous   grief 
And  all  the  rhythm  of  reverent  agony; 
That  toward  the  face,  ineffable  and  austere, 
Disdainful,  august,  and  perfect  beyond  all  Time, 
Swiftly  we  turn,  and  scornful  of  all  else, 
Rapturous,  shuddering,  on  the  magnificent  breast 
Lean  as  forever,  never  to  depart! 

Then  draws  the  spirit  nearer  to  her  Source, 
At  the  one  extreme  as  at  the  other  extreme — 
Ecstasy — agony — for  both  are  one 
And  lead  us  back  into  the  home  of  things 
Forever  holy  and  forever  new. 


BEETHOVEN 

BEAUTY  here  is  seen  at  rest  in  the  peace  thereof, 
Love  that  bending  down  looks  back  on  the  pain  of 

Love, 
Sorrow  smiling  on  herself  from  the  heights  above. 


TO  A  DEAD  GIRL 

ALTHOUGH  your  feet  gone  deeply  in  the  dust 
Wounded  the  breasts  of  Beauty  with  dull  pain, 
Although   your  spirit  bore  the  outer  stain 

Of  things  unlovely,  and  the  inner  rust; 


208 

Beyond  all  anger,  and  beyond  all  lust, 
The  eternal  Beauty  harbors  no  disdain, — 
Sorrowful  to  her  bosom's  peace  again 
She  takes  them  back,  the  just  and  the  unjust. 

Nay,  even  as  a  star  that  from  the  red 
Ruin  of  sunset  rises  pure  and  bright 

Into  the  holy  host  of  heaven's  dome, 
So,  too,  your  soul,  arising  from  the  dead, 

Pants  upward  with  her  own  immaculate  light, 
Virgin  returns  to  the  eternal  home. 

BEAUTY  TO  HER  LOVER 

ART  thou  hungry,  O  my  child,  O  my  child,  art  thou  fain 

for  beauty, 

For  sad  beauty  that  passes  like  a  gleam ! 
Is  thy  life  barred  about  with  duty  and  barren  duty, 
Art  thou  as  one  crying  out  of  the  maze  of  things 

that  seem 
In  a  half-dream,  between  a  dream  and  a  dream! 

Have  a  care,  have  a  care  to  thy  voice,  have  a  care  to 

thy  crying, 

Lest  I  draw  thee  back  into  the  web  of  things ; 
Lest  I  smite  thy  mouth  with  sleep,  that  it  should  be 

sighing, 
Lest  I  fold  thee  against  my  heart  where  the  blood 

sings, 
After  thy  wanderings,  after  thy  long  wanderings ! 


209 
DUMBNESS 

WITHIN  my  heart,  half  little  child,  half  angel, 
A  spirit  sat  and  sang  for  sheer  delight, 

When  darkness  lapped  my  spirit  'round  his   rapture 
Rose  in  me  radiant,  like  a  star  at  night. 

Angel  of  Song — my  master  and  mine  only, 

The  little  child — long  loved  and  followed  long, 

How  have  I  strangled  with  this  alien  sadness 
The  virgin  voice  within  me  of  your  song ! 


TO 


IN  the  somber  night  of  hope,  under  the  trees 

Of  the  fruitless  years  where  yet  no  flowers  have 

been  born, 

All  in  the  first  twilight  of  hope  when  the  dawn 
Is  a  promised  thing,  quietly  a  prophetic  breeze 
Has  stirred  murmurously  the  intertwined  branches  of 

these, 

Under  the  boughs  of  Time  where  I  sit,  nor  mourn, 
Save  always  a  little,  for  the  many  stars  shall  be 

withdrawn 
When  the  first  breath  of  morning  comes  over  the  seas. 

O  solemn  first  breath  of  Life  blown  out  upon  the  air ! 
With  a  faint  crying  of  my  heart  I  strive  to  give 
breath 


210 

To  the  innumerable  dreams  it  awakens  lying  under- 
neath ; 
But  you  by  the  tree  of  your  life  more  green  and  more 

fair, 

Shall  I  not  sing  them  to  you,  listening  to  them  there, 
The  dreams  that  shall  blow  in  my  heart  until  the 
twilight  of  death. 


THE  FRIEND 

AFAR  the  fresh  sea  shimmers, 
The  sea-birds  wheel  and  pass. 

I  lie  alone  in  the  twilight 
Here,  by  the  thin  sea-grass. 

A  molten  radiance  slowly 

Wells  through  the  sunset  dim, — 
The  thought  of  you  that  tenderly 

Trembles  along  the  rim, 

A  golden,  a  luminous  rapture; 

Heaven  glows  on  either  hand. 
What  liberal  thought  and  lovely 

Widens  on  sea  and  land? 

Makes  spacious  the  Void  around  me 
For  breathing-spaces?     See, 

My  soul,  too,  widens  exultant: 
Large-hearted,  fresh,  and  free, 


211 
Drinks  in  deep  draughts  around  her, 

To  the  deep  core  shot  through ! — 
Your  great  and  gracious  presence, 

The  generous  thought  of  you, 

Of  those  great  days  together, 

Your  golden  and  royal  ways, 
Lifts   me   like   golden  music 

Out  of  the  little  days. 


S^L  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


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